
Class t 

Book 

Copyright^ . 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



BIBLE STUDIES ON THE 
SABBATH QUESTION 



FOR THE USE OF 



PASTORS, SABBATH SCHOOLS, YOUNG 

PEOPLE'S CLASSES, HOME 

STUDY, ETC. 



ARTHUR ELWIN MAIN, D.D., 

Dean and Professor of Systematic and Pastoral Theology t 
Alfred Theological Seminary, Alfred, N. Y. 



PRINTED FOR 

THE SABBATH SCHOOL BOARD OF THE 

SEVENTH DAY BAPTIST GENERAL CONFERENCE 

BY THE 

AMERICAN SABBATH TRACT SOCIETY 

( Seventh-day Baptist ) 

PLAINFIELD, NEW JERSEY 



1909 






Copyrighted 1910 by 
The Sabbath School Board of the 
Seventh-day Baptist General 
Conference 



©CLA25< 



CONTENTS 

Page 
Introduction 5 

Part I. 

The Sabbath in the Old Testament: 

Studies 1-22 9-43 

Part II. 

The Sabbath in the New Testament: 

Studies 1 - 21 47-72 

A Brief Historical Survey 73 

Bibliography 79 



INTRODUCTION 

The Sabbath is a living question, today, in Christian 
literature, and in the world of Christian life and thought. 
Conventions are held, addresses made, sermons preached, 
books written, papers published, and State and National 
legislatures petitioned, in the interests of Sunday observance. 
This is a recognition of the importance of having some par- 
ticular day set apart for change and rest for body and 
mind, and for special religious and humanizing purposes. 
History and experience witness to the vital connection be- 
tween such a day and the physical, moral, and spiritual 
welfare of mankind. And it is my belief that if the Church 
would come back to the Sabbath of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, its appeal on behalf of sabbathism would be sup- 
ported by Scripture, history, reason, and sentiment, as can 
not be the case in efforts for the Sunday. 

Advancing knowledge in the fields of physical and mental 
science, and of history, has greatly changed and enlarged 
our conceptions of God, man, and the universe. Through 
our increasing knowledge of ancient peoples and religions 
we have been led to look upon all the great religions of 
the world as signs that men everywhere have been seeking 
after God, who met them on the highest level of their 
thought and desire. But as the Christian Scriptures, religion, 
and ethics, claim to be the true and the best, they must 
stand the test of history, experience, and reason. 

Industrial progress, new social conditions, and closer 
international relations, are the wonder of our times, and 
must be reckoned with by us who believe in the final triumph 
of the religion and morals of the kingdom of Jesus Christ 
our Lord. 

The study of the history and literature of the Bible has 
been lifted to the level of other history and literature; 
and the right of the Bible to the results of a critical scientific, 
historical, and literary investigation of its claims is recog- 
nized as never before. 

The rational and practical, the scientific and historical 
spirit and method prevail. What are things worth to us 
while we fight the battles of life? Will they help us realize 



6 INTRODUCTION 

our aspirations for what is better? Modernly educated 
young men and women, and, indeed, all really thoughtful 
persons, ask for facts that are correctly defined, clearly 
verified, and well arranged. And the historical spirit views 
the world of men and events as a great whole of related 
parts, to be studied and explained according to the prin- 
ciples of evolution or development. Men will not believe in 
Christ because of his alleged miracles; they must first believe 
in Christ the revelation of God, then in miracle. Men will 
not believe in the Bible because told that it is inspired; 
they will first believe in the Scriptures as the most wonder- 
ful of all books on religion and morals; then they can not 
but believe in its inspiration. Men will not believe in the 
supernatural as something which contradicts or violates the 
natural; for this also is of God; but in supernatural as 
only another name for that which is natural in God's sight. 
Such are the changed points of view, such the proposed new 
light for old faiths, demanded by modern thought and our 
growing knowledge of the great world; such the new tests 
and new opportunities that Christianity must meet in the 
twentieth century. And, in turn, things modern and new 
as well as things traditional and old in theory and practice, 
must answer whether they can adjust themselves to the 
ethical and spiritual principles taught and lived by Jesus 
the Nazarene. We need have no fear as to the results, 
if we will only do the will of God as he gives us to know his 
will ; for then we shall know whether the doctrine be of 
him or not. 

The Sabbath must also prove itself equal to the demands 
of these new points of view, and the great opportunities and 
responsibilities of the Christian Church and religion today, 
or surrender its claim to represent a truth of God, provi- 
dentially ordained to bless the human race. That however 
it is worthy of <an honored place in the Christian faith 
and practice of this century, we believe to be the teaching 
of the Old and New Testaments when interpreted historically 
and reasonably. 



PART I 

THE SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 



THE SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

Study I. 

The opening chapters of Genesis are not a piece of 
Jewish national history; for they go back, in doctrine, to 
a period long before the Jews formed a part of the world's 
history. The teachings here are of supreme interest to 
everybody that thinks concerning God, creation, man, the 
Sabbath, marriage, sin, its consequences, and the hope of 
redemption. The true intellectual, social, moral, and spiritual 
welfare of all men depends upon the principles found in this 
scripture. The doctrine of God; the stories of creation; of 
the earth now waste and void, now by the Spirit of God 
a cosmos good and blessed; of man in his Maker's image 
and likeness and given dominion over all other created 
things; of marriage and the family; of the dreadful tragedy 
of sin, its punishment, and the beginnings of the history 
of man's salvation, — these matters do not belong to any 
particular time, land, or people. They have universal value 
and meaning, and are related to human history, not Hebrew 
only. 

Now in the heart of this ancient universal religious and 
moral history, the product of divine inspiration, we find 
the hallowed and blessed seventh day. The Sabbath then 
can not be "Jewish" in the sense of having originated with 
the Mosaic legislation, and of being a national institution 
merely. The records have come to us by Jewish hands ; 
and Jesus said "salvation is from the Jews." The charge 
that Seventh-day Baptists are the disciples of Moses and 
Judaism, in contrast with being disciples of Christ and the 
Gospel, is unwarranted by Scripture, history, or reason. 

Among primitive nations there were many accounts of 
the origin of the world. But our Bible stories tower far 
above them all in simplicity, grandeur, purity and spirituality; 
and in their doctrines of God, the world, man, and their 
religious and moral relations. 

Many unsuccessful attempts have been made to har- 
monize the teachings here with the teachings of modern 



10 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

science. The degree of actual scientific correctness, and 
the depth of philosophical thinking are clear and striking; 
but the ruling purpose of this Scripture is not scientific or 
philosophical, but religious and moral. And an historical 
and literary point of view, loyal at once to true scientific, 
philosophical, and spiritual methods and aims, should guide 
us in our interpretation of the form and content of these 
ancient writings. 

The word "day" must mean a period of twenty-four 
hours. No other meaning fits the language, or gives proper 
significance and force to the legislative appointment of the 
seventh or last day of the week for a Sabbath. 

The physical universe is a book of God, because it re- 
veals the power, wisdom, methods, and thought of God. 
And according to the teachings of this great book as read 
by modern science, it was a vast period, — how vast no one 
can tell, — from the time when the earth was waste and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, to the 
time when the Creator saw everything that he had made, 
and, behold, it was very good. But these untold ages are 
represented in Genesis as a period of six days. 

We have here, then, an inspired masterly pictorial story 
and description of creation, whose glory is its simplicity and 
sublimity. It is for the child and the greatest scholar. It 
contains the great essential truths about God, man, and 
the world, that men most need to know ; and being a living 
word because the word of God, it has the capacity to take 
on from age to age all the mysteries of light, — the light of 
knowledge that shines from advancing theology, science, 
philosophy, history, and experience. 

"The sovereignty of God and the supremacy of law and 
order are the most striking features of this story of creation." 
(Cf. Psalms civ. Isaiah xl. Proverbs viii. and Job xxxviii.) 
In these opening words of Genesis the Hebrew poet 
gives us "six scenes in the Act of Creation, six pictures of 
the general order of the development of nature. . . . The 
poem of the Creation conceives God as speaking six creative 
words, in order thus to paint the six pictures of creation 
in an orderly manner. The poet does not propose to com- 
prehend in his representation all the forces and forms and 
methods of the work of God. Take it as it is, it is a lyric 
poem of wonderful power and beauty. Science has not yet 
reached a point where it can tell the story of creation 



STUDY I. II 

as well. The story of creation is set forth in the legends 
and myths of many nations. The Babylonian poem gives 
us the best ethnic representation. But all these ethnic con- 
ceptions are discolored by mythological fancies and grotesque 
speculations. Compared with the best of them the Biblical 
Poem is pure and simple and grand. A divine touch is in 
its sketchings." — Briggs. 

It may be that some one will ask, Why dwell so long 
upon the nature and value of the first chapters of Genesis? 
There are four good reasons, at least: (i) This is beautiful 
and instructive Scripture. (2) It is essential to an under- 
standing of the rest of the Bible. (3) In this book of 
Genesis, the book of the beginnings of the world and of 
the self-revelation of God to man, there is given the basis 
of history, religion, and righteousness. (4) If therefore 
the Sabbath doctrine has its roots here it is well rooted. If 
its foundations are here, it is built on rock, not on the sand. 

It has been quite the fashion with some religious teachers 
to place a light estimate upon the worth of the Old Testa- 
ment. A minister once said that he thought we had little 
use for the Old Testament, unless it was the Psalms for 
devotional reading. The influence of this kind of teaching 
spread until the Church was in danger of becoming lost to 
the beauty, power, and educational and religious importance 
of the holy Scriptures of the Old Covenant. 

Higher criticism, or, better, historical and literary 
criticism, as such, does not concern itself with the religious 
meaning of any book or passage of the Bible, or with the 
doctrines of revelation and inspiration. It does not ask, 
What does the given book or passage teach? But, When, 
where, by whom, for whom, was it written or spoken? Is it 
prose, poetiry, history, narrative, discourse, prediction, or epistle ? 
Is the language literal or figurative? What did it mean to 
the writer, and to those who first heard or read it? and 
so on. 

Thus modern biblical scholarship is re-discovering the 
Old Testament and revealing to us more and more of its 
inestimable value as a treasury of divine truth. 

The book of Genesis is understood and valued as never 
before, as it is more clearly seen to be "the true and original 
birthplace of all theology. It contains those ideas of God 
and man, of righteousness and judgment, of responsibility 
and moral government, of failure and hope, which are pre- 



12 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

supposed through the rest of the Old Testament, and which 
prepare the way for the mission of Christ". — Hastings, art. 
Genesis. 

"Without that clear and sublime attestation at the 
threshold of the inspired record, of the personal source from 
which all has flowed, and of the unique worth and dignity 
of man, and his near kinship with that source, surely human 
life would have been far darker and more hopeless, and the 
deepest problems would have remained unsolved. Upon 
this basis, laid broad and clear in Genesis, the revelation 
of the New Covenant in Christ Jesus rests. For the 
mediatorial work of Christ rests on the Fatherhood of the 
Creator of all things, and on the supreme worth of man, 
whom Jesus came to save." — Hastings, art. Cosmogony. 

Now the Sabbath and marriage, two holy and blessed 
institutions, symbolic and actual foundations of religion and 
society, are found in this very Scripture, "at the threshold 
of the inspired record." 

As in the case of marriage so the Sabbath was misunder- 
stood and misused. But in the teachings of Jesus as we 
shall find, both are lifted out of Mosaism and Judaism into 
the grace, truth, and glory of the original divine and ideal 
purpose. 

Study II. 



Read Gen. ii, 1-3. 

The Genesis story of Creation comes to us in the frame 
or under the figure of a working week; and the Sabbath is 
given a place of great worth by being at the end of that 
sublime pictorial week, and at the beginning of human 
history. 

The work of creation was not really "finished" until 
after the divine "resting," "blessing," and "hallowing." One 
of the highest privileges of the mind is to look back upon 
completed work with satisfying contemplation. God saw that 
everything he had made was very good, because fitted to ac- 
complish his holy purpose ; and he could "rest." Such rest 
the immanent God finds in his unceasing but restful activity 
as he sustains and orders all the host of created things in 
the heavens and the earth for spiritual ends. Cf. "My Father 
worketh until now, and I work." John v. 17. 



STUDY II. 13 

The Hebrew word translated "rested" (shabath) means 
to desist, cease; so the writer is not speaking of the rest 
of relaxation, but of cessation from the activity of the work 
of creation. "In the verb used (shabath) there is evident 
allusion to the 'sabbath' (properly shabbath)." — Driver. 

The order of nature's development from lower to higher 
forms, and the history of the divine process of creation, 
have their self-witnessing expression in the Sabbath, which, 
at the end of God's week of labor, stands between his self- 
revelation in creative acts and his self-revelation in a com- 
pleted world, — a world that furnishes a sphere for free 
human activity, and for redemptive history. The Sabbath, 
here, marks the clear distinction between creation "in the 
beginning," and history and providence ; but both are de- 
pendent upon the Creator's presence, power, and activity. 
And as commemorating creation, and the Creator who is 
also the God of history, providence, and redemption, the 
Sabbath possesses great dignity and value. — Schultz. 

For God to "bless" is to express his favoring will con- 
cerning the thing blessed. It means here that the Sabbath 
was appointed to beneficent and happy consequences. And 
if the Sabbath is a burden rather than a blessing to us, 
the fault is ours, for misunderstanding or misusing it ; for 
it was not so intended from the beginning. 

To "hallow" anything is to set it apart or dedicate it 
to uncommon and sacred uses. The Sabbath was con- 
secrated to religious and ethical ends; to the good of human 
society and of all the creatures of God. If, then, we use 
the Sabbath in a way that makes it a fitting and beautiful 
memorial of God's finished creation of the world, and a 
symbol of the rest of our new creation in Jesus Christ (Heb. 
iv. 9-1 1 ) ; if we use it so that it brings good to all men in 
all of the relations of life, — social, industrial, and civic, 
it becomes in truth a blessed and sanctified day fo»r men, 
families, communities, and nations. 

The Sabbath idea and the seventh or last day of the 
week are naturally and necessarily linked together in this 
scripture. Our Maker is represented here as finishing his 
work and resting on the seventh day; and it was the seventh 
day that he blessed and hallowed. The reason given ap- 
plies to no other day, and can make no other day the Sab- 
bath; and this reason has no more passed away than the 
meaning of the rainbow (Gen. ix. 12, 13). Thus we are 



14 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

taught how God, by his work of creation, ennobles the ordi- 
nary work done by us, creatures bearing his image and like- 
ness, — work that ought to be our joy and honor; and how, 
by resting, he sanctifies our resting from life's common labors. 
The blessing of the seventh day clothes it with beauty and 
power, — power for good to men individually and collectively; 
and the hallowing of the seventh day puts it into living re- 
lations with its Author and with our religious experiences 
in him, and makes it a most fitting and much needed bond 
of union between all worshipers of God. And words are 
robbed of meaning if the ground for the doctrine of the 
holy and practical purpose and the universal spiritual ob- 
servance of the Sabbath day are not laid here. 

Along with great truths and facts concerning God, crea- 
tion, man, sin, early civilization, religion, the consequences 
of sin, and redemption, — the seventh or last day of the week 
as the blessed and hallowed day, and holy marriage, are 
leading parts of the early chapters of Genesis. These nar- 
ratives, no matter when they took on their present literary 
form, are manifestly intended to set forth the foundations 
of religion, righteousness, redemptive history, good social 
order, and the kingdom of God. 

Driver, in commenting on Gen. ii. 24, says : "Marriage, — 
and moreover monogamic marriage, — is thus explained as 
the direct consequence of a relation established by the 
Creator. Cf. Matt. xix. 4-6; Mark x. 6-8." Likewise we 
may say that in Gen. ii. 1-3, Sabbath-keeping, — and moreover 
Sabbath-keeping on the seventh day of the week, — is ex- 
plained as the direct consequences of an ordinance of the 
Creator. Cf. Exod. xx. 8-1 1; Mark ii. 27, 28. 

Study III. 



The beginnings of human history are recorded in Genesis, 
chapters i-xi ; the beginnings of Hebrew history in chapters 
xii-1. In this part of the Bible there is no direct teaching 
concerning the Sabbath; but the number seven occurs many 
times. See any good concordance of the Bible. This number 
is also found in Babylonia-Assyrian literature. The origin 
of this usage, it is not difficult to decide, must have been 
the deep impression made upon the minds of men by the 
regular recurrence of the seven days of the week, which 



STUDY III. 15 

was suggested by the phases of the moon. "The combina- 
tion of this number with the cultus was, therefore, probably 
an inheritance which the Hebrews brought with them when 
they migrated from their home in the East." — Hastings, art. 
Number. 

Abraham, in his early Chaldean home, "was no doubt 
taught that strangely mixed religion which clung for genera- 
tions to some members of his family. Certainly he was taught 
in common with the whole community to rest on the seventh 
day; as he was trained to look on the stars with reverence 
and to the moon as something more than the light that was 
set to rule the night." — The Expositor's Bible, The Book of 
Genesis, Dods. 

This does not mean that the seventh day was observed 
then according to the teachings of Moses and later prophets ; 
but that the prophets and law-givers of Israel took the seventh 
day of primitive peoples and lifted it to a high and sacred 
place in the purest of all ancient religions, the Hebrew 
cultus; and from this it passed into the still more spiritual 
conceptions of the religion of Jesus. 

That the week of seven days, and some regard for seventh 
days, are pre-Mosaic, see Oehler's Old Testament Theology, 
Day, sect. 147; Old Testament Theology, Schultz, vol. I., 
pp. 204, 205 ; The Book of Genesis, Driver, p. 34 ; New Com- 
mentary on Genesis, Delitzsch, p. no; The New Century 
Bible, Genesis, p. 88; Old Testament History, Wade, pp. 43, 
44, 93; The Monuments and the Old Testament, Price, pp. 
85-87; Light on the Old Testament from Babel, Clay, pp. 
15-17; Old Testament History, Smith, pp. 329-331; History 
of Religion, Menzies, p. 96; Manual of the Science of Religion, 
De La Saussaye, 169, 613; Religion of Babylonia and As- 
syria, Jastrow, pp. 377, 378; Dictionary of the Bible, Hastings, 
arts. Sabbath, Time; Encyclopaedia Biblica, art. Sabbath; 
Religion of the Old Testament, Marti, p. 14; Early Hebrezv 
Story, Peters, p. 203 ; The Early Traditions of Genesis, 
Gordon, pp. 216-223. 

All this does not show that the Babylonia-Assyrians or 
any other pre-Mosaic nation had a true sabbath. But, (1) 
we see that the week and the seventh day have their roots 
far back in the past. (2) The great antiquity and the 
naturalness of religion and of religious time are made plain. 
(3) The Sabbath and many other customs were adopted 
by Moses, but adapted to the most spiritual and ethical re- 



l6 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

ligion of ancient times, the Hebrew. (4) And. as we shall 
see later in our study, the Sabbath came to be, as was the 
divine intention, not a grievous burden, "but to the true 
worshippers of Jahveh, it was always a 'delight' (cf. Isa. 
lviii. 13/), a day which kept alive their faith and joy in 
God amid the depressing gloom of exile and bondage, and 
in which they enjoyed 'some presentment of the pure bliss 
and happiness which are stored up for the righteous in the 
world to come.' " — Gordon. 



Study IV. 



The Exodus from Egypt and the Mosaic legislation are 
the subject of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and 
Deuteronomy. These books, no doubt, received additions, 
revision, and editing, in later periods ; but Moses and the 
events of his time laid their historical, religious, ethical, and 
literary foundations ; and their spiritual and moral value to 
us is unimpaired by questions of dates and redaction. 

Moses, Israel's great deliverer, religious and moral leader, 
and law-giver, is one of the world's greatest legislators and 
most mighty personalities ; and his work and teachings are 
both Hebrew and human, national and universal. 

'Tt was neither as philosopher nor as poet, but as 
prophet, that Moses became the founder of his people's re- 
ligion. He received it, he adopted it. in a religious spirit, 
he did not by his own thought create it. . . . The whole way 
in which Moses does his work is a result of this divine 
voice, a result of the consciousness that he is acting by God's 
commission." — Schultz, vol. I., ch. viii. 

"So, in his own wondrous way, God raises up Moses, 
a truly gigantic figure ; next to our Lord, perhaps the most 
important personality in the history of religion. Here again 
we see the sort of man whom God calls to conspicuous 
service/' — McFadyen, The Messages of the Bible, vol. IV.. 
P- 53- 

"In Sinai . . . tradition locates the capital achievement 
of Moses, his religious reorganization of the people. It 
is one of the most remarkable moments in the history of 
mankind, the birth-hour of the religion of the spirit. In 
the thunderstorms of Sinai the God of revelation himself 



STUDY IV. 17 

comes down upon the earth ; here we have the dawn of the 
day which was to break upon the whole human race, and 
among the greatest mortals who ever walked this earth 
Moses will always remain one of the greatest." — Cornill. 

"Moses ... is the father of the priests as well as the 
father of the prophets." "He was a prophet as well as a 
judge. As such, he founded in Israel the great principles 
of the moral religion of the righteous Jehovah." — W. Robert- 
son Smith, Hastings, art. Moses. 

Many more similar quotations might be given. Now 
these are the utterances not of conservative and "old- 
fashioned," but of modern, progressive, critical scholarship. 
And it is certainly a most interesting and significant fact that 
this great and inspired leader and law-giver, the founder 
of a nation and of a unique and wonderful religious system, 
gave the Sabbath a central and fundamental place in his 
religious and social legislation. 

Thoughtful, active, modernly educated young people are 
coming to have a profound respect for reason, conscience, 
religion, and the right; and they are learning to think more 
scientifically and accurately; that is, they are disposed to 
withhold belief and practice from all but self-witnessing truth, 
and moral allegiance from all persons but Jesus of Nazareth. 
Mere external authority, whether of church, or book, or 
man, commands them in vain, unless the commands are rooted 
in reason, conscience, and in the life and teachings of the 
Son of Man. Therefore, in the interests of truth, progress, 
and sound learning, Seventh-day Baptists should encourage 
the highest scholarship that comes only from historical, sci- 
entific, philosophical and literary inquiry; and be most hos- 
pitable to all real truth and fact. No other denomination of 
Christians can more safely do this. We ought to be the fore- 
most in open-mindedness, breadth of charity, and large- 
heartedness. 

Contrary to what our young people are sometimes told, 
while progress in science, and in the historical, literary, 
critical, and spiritual study of the Bible is requiring us to 
readjust our Sabbath teaching and practice to more rational 
and ethical interpretations of Scripture, history, and provi- 
dence, it is also furnishing us with material for laying stronger 
foundations still for the doctrine of Sabbath-keeping on the 
last or seventh day of the week, according to the principles 
and practice of our Lord and Saviour. 



l8 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

One will read or be told that recent scholarship con- 
cludes that the Hebrew Sabbath was derived, ultimately and 
historically, from Babylonia; or that the Hebrew and Baby- 
lonian institutions had a common origin ; and so is led to 
believe or fear that this tends to overthrow our doctrine 
that the Sabbath is of divine origin and authority. 

Our reply is: I. We cheerfully give up some of our 
former opinions respecting the Sabbath, that are neither 
required by the Scriptures nor warranted by history and 
science. The world was not made in six twenty-four-hour 
days ; the Sabbath had a natural as well as a supernatural 
or providential origin ; and Christ, not Moses, is our teacher 
as to the method of Sabbath-keeping. 2. We are grateful 
for this added knowledge as to how the God of providence 
and redemptive history works in and through the natural 
course of events for the accomplishment of his purposes of 
grace. The Sabbath may have passed from the Chaldeans 
to the Hebrews ; but it is not therefore not from God. 
Salvation is from the Jews, our Lord himself said ; but who 
would dare say, It is therefore not from God? 3. It is 
this same modern biblical scholarship that also says, "Like 
other already existing institutions which were taken up into 
the Mosaic system of religion and morals, the Sabbath, under 
the divine inspiration and guidance, assumed a new char- 
acter among the Hebrews. It was stripped of its super- 
stitious and heathen associations, and made subservient to 
religious, moral, and social ends." — Hastings, art. Sabbath. 



Study V. 

We are now to try to find out what is taught in the 
books of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, con- 
cerning the Sabbath; and to inquire as to the relation of this 
teaching to ourselves. 

The results of our study will not be essentially affected 
by the admission that Leviticalism and revisions and ad- 
ditions to Mosaism, belong to a period centuries later than 
Moses, and the exodus from Egypt. For Moses certainly 
furnished the substantial basis and the heart of all the legis- 
lation and instruction found in the books of Exodus, Leviti- 
cus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, in their present form, and 
which are grounded in the Decalogue. 



STUDY V. 19 

It should be borne in mind that our point of view is 
historical ; that is, the Scripture we study was given directly 
to the Hebrew people, and belongs to the Old Covenant. 
But these people were being trained to become a means of 
divine blessing to the whole world. And they were not 
only Jews, but men and women, boys and girls. What they 
were taught, therefore, must have contained universal ele- 
ments and been grounded in universal principles. What 
and how much is universal and enduring, is to be learned 
from the teachings of the New Covenant. To keep this 
in mind will help us to appreciate the really great significance 
and value of Mosaism; and to realize that those ancient 
externals actually clothed living and eternal verities. 

Read Exod. xvi. 22-30. 

This belongs to a time and place in Israel's journeying 
before Sinai and the Fourth Commandment. See xvi. 1 
and xvii, 1. The Sabbath may have been forgotten in Egypt. 
But the language here agrees exactly with the idea that it 
was not an absolutely new thing. It reads as it would were 
the Sabbath being reinstituted as something that ought to 
have been known or readily recognized. 

Verses 23 and 27 teach that the Sabbath is to be kept 
with Jehovah in our thoughts. Verse 27 illustrates a lack 
of faith ; and verse 29 shows the divine care for those who 
trust in the good providence of a good God. 



Study VI. 

The accounts of the first publication and of the preserva- 
tion of the Decalogue contain extraordinary particulars in- 
tended to witness to the belief in its immediate divine origin, 
sovereign authority, and incomparable importance. See 
Exod. xix. 16-25; xxxi. 18; xxxiv. 1; Deut. iv. 12, 13; x. 5. 

The giving of the Decalogue was one of the most mo- 
mentous events in all the history of religion. There was 
then published to Israel and for the world the germs of that 
which developed, by varying stages, into the highest of all 
forms of religion, — the Christian. A leading argument of 
the destructive critics against the antiquity of the Decalogue 
is, not that it is "Jewish," but its high ethical, religious, and 
spiritual character. 



20 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

"The formation of the canon," says Professor Briggs, 
"began with the promulgation of the Ten Words as the 
fundamental divine law to Israel. These ten words were 
given in their original form as brief, terse words or sen- 
tences. The specifications and reasons were added to the 
several different documents of the Hexateuch, and these 
were eventually compacted together in the two versions, — 
Exod. xx and Deut. v. These ten words were given by 
the theophanic voice of God to Israel on Mount Horeb. 
They were taken up into all the original documents of the 
Hexateuch. They lie at the basis of the entire legislation. 
They have the authority of God, and public recognition, and 
adoption. They were kept on the two tables of stone, in 
the holy ark in the most Holy Place of the tabernacle and 
the temple. If any document fulfills the tests of canonicity 
the Tables of the Law certainly do." 

In our study of the Decalogue let us also take careful 
note of what the Expositor's Bible has to say concerning it: 
"Whatever its origin, it is an exceedingly remarkable docu- 
ment. It touches the fundamental principles of religious 
and moral life with so sure a hand that at this hour, for 
even the most civilized nation, it sums up the moral code, 
and that so effectively, that no change or extension of it 
has ever been proposed. 

"By emphasizing the universal nature of the ten com- 
mandments, and by showing that they preceded the ceremonial 
law by many centuries, the critical school have cut away the 
ground from under the semi-antinomian views, once so 
prevalent and always so popular, with those who call them- 
selves advanced thinkers. 

"It is now no longer possible to maintain that the Deca- 
logue was part of a purely Jewish law, binding only upon 
Jews, and passing away at the advent of Christianity as the 
ceremonial law did. 

"Now, manifestly, a religion which spoke its first word 
in the ten commandments, even in their simplest form, must 
have been in its very heart and core moral. 

"They (the prophets) were simply reasserting the funda- 
mental principles of the Mosaic religion. Reverence and 
righteousness, — these from the first were the twin pillars 
upon which it rested. 



STUDY VI. 21 

"Like all beginnings, this was an achievement of the 
highest kind. Nowhere but in the soul of one Divinely 
enlightened man could such a revelation have made itself 
known. 

"Nor is there anything ceremonial or Jewish in the com- 
mand, Remember or observe the rest-day to keep it holy. 
In the reasons given in Exodus and Deuteronomy we have 
the two principles which make this a moral and universal 
command, — the necessity for rest, and the necessity of an 
opportunity to cultivate the spiritual nature. 

"Understood in that way, the fourth commandment shows 
a delicate perception of the conditions of the higher life 
which surpasses even the prohibition of covetousness in the 
tenth. In the words of a workingman who was advocating 
its observance : 'It gives God a chance,' that is, it gives man 
the leisure to attend to God. But the moral point of view 
which it implies is so high, and so difficult of attainment, that 
it is only now that the nations of Europe are awaking to 
the inestimable moral benefits of the Sabbath they have 
despised. Because of this difficulty, too, many who think 
themselves to be leaders in the path of improvement, and 
are esteemed by others to be so, are never weary of trying to 
weaken the moral consciousness ' of the people until th'ey 
Can steal this benefit away, on the ground that Sabbath-keep- 
ing is a mere ceremonial observance. So far from being 
that, it is a moral duty of the highest type, and the danger 
in which it seems at times to stand is due mainly to the 
fact that to appreciate it needs a far more trained and sin- 
cere conscience than most of us can bring to the consideration 
of it." 

The prophets built their moral teachings upon the Deca- 
logue. Concerning this the Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible 
says : "Assuredly, the prophets did not first enunciate, but 
inherited, the doctrine that, true religion utters itself in 
morality; and it is an obvious inference from the broad 
facts of the tradition that this fundamental idea was affirmed 
by and descended from Moses. That as the founder or re- 
former of a religion, he should have embodied its leading 
principles in 'terse' sentences is not only possible but prob- 
able, and the testimony to the fact that in the Decalogue 
we possess such a summary is too strong to be set aside 
in the interests of a historical theory." 



22 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

The Decalogue is characterized by both greatness and 
real limitations. Within a remarkably small compass it 
lays down the foundation articles of religion, — the sov- 
ereignty and the spirituality of God; and the claims of 
morality in the chief spheres of life, — home and society. 

Its ethical precepts are most indispensable and far- 
reaching; and its wonderful moral value is further seen in 
its unique capacity to receive richer and fuller contents, as 
at the hands of Jesus. This proves its possession of inner 
life and power ; for it is only living things that can grow 
and expand. 

But its supreme distinction and glory lie in its teaching 
that religion and morality are knit together by vital and 
indissoluble bonds. It is the great pre-Christian advocate 
of righteousness as the highest and best kind of ritual. In 
an age of much ethically indifferent ceremonialism; and 
in the midst of elaborate systems of festivals and sacrifices, 
the Decalogue makes it plain that a holy God requires, most 
of all, justice, mercy, purity, kindness, and truth. 

The one strictly religious and direct commandment of the 
law, — the Sabbath, — makes special, regular, and needed pro- 
vision for meditation and worship ; and shows compassion 
for the weary and heavy-laden, not forgetting either the 
servants or the beasts of burden. 

The revelations of God as recorded in the Scriptures 
were gradual. The great and good God made known his 
holiness and will to man according to the degree of de- 
velopment of their willingness and capacity to know him. 
Even the Decalogue then can not but have its limitations. 
These lie on the surface, and may be clearly seen. It is 
too brief to be exhaustive in depth or breadth ; and its moral 
requirements relate for the most part to justice among men. 
It is necessarily elementary; for uninstructed and undisci- 
plined people, like children, must be taught first principles 
long and patiently. 

Accordingly, the demands are not high pitched when 
compared with the Sermon on the Mount. Of essential and 
highest value in the religious and moral training of a primi- 
tive people, the Decalogue did not and could not rise to the 
wants of an enlightened and sanctified Christian conscience 
and the demands of. Christ's spiritual and moral ideals. 
For this we must go to his interpretation or revision of the 



STUDY VII. 23 

Decalogue in his continued lofty teaching, deeds of love, 
divine and human, and purity of life. — Hastings. 

The opening chapters of Genesis are of inestimable value; 
the Sabbath was a gift from our Creator for all mankind, 
as was the family also ; it was ordained to turn the 
minds and hearts of men toward their Maker, and to pro- 
mote our spiritual and physical good; and there are many 
pious and scholarly witnesses to the great moral and re- 
ligious worth of the Decalogue, whose value as a whole 
exalts the quality of every part. 



Study VII. 

Read Exodus xx. 8-11. 

The word "remember" may or may not refer to Gen. 
ii. 1-3 and Exod. xvi. 22-30; but the Decalogue is not the 
formal enactment of entirely new, but the compilation of old 
and enduring principles. 

The Fourth Commandment is given a unique place, because 
embodied in a great moral code whose saeredness and au- 
thority Paul incidentally and so all the more certainly, recog- 
nized in Eph. vi. 2. (Amer. Rev.) Evidently the author of 
the Decalogue did not think it was disfigured by the Sab- 
bath law. Put in the place of the Fourth Commandment any 
one of the scores of ceremonial laws, and think how the 
unity and dignity would be marred ! Its honorable position 
in the midst of such a wonderful summary of what men 
owe to God and to one another, weighs heavily in favor of 
its high character. 

"In Exodus we have the motive for the observance of 
the Sabbath raised to the universal and eternal, by being 
brought into connection with the creative activity of God." 
But the Sabbath is not to be kept merely because our Maker 
worked and rested; but because he blessed and sanctified 
it for man's good. "He who breaks the Sabbath denies the 
creation," say some of the wisest of Jewish teachers. If 
this be thought too strong language, the Sabbath was, at 
any rate, a central point in the greatest of the world's 
ancient religions ; a weekly reminder that Jehovah God 
creates, sustains, and rules the universe. 



24 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

"Now," again says the Expositor's Bible, "the founda- 
tion upon which all the institutions of religion may be se- 
curely built, is the day of rest. Call it external, formal, 
unspiritual, if you will; say that it is a carnal ordinance, 
and that he who keeps it in spirit is free from the obliga- 
tion of the letter. But then what about the eighth com- 
mandment? Are we absolved also from the precept, 'Thou 
shalt not steal/ because it too is concerned with external 
actions, because of 'this . . . thou shalt not steal . . . and 
if there be any other commandment, it is briefly compre- 
hended in this one saying, Thou shalt love thy neighbor aj 
thyself?' Do we say, The Spirit has abolished the letter; 
love is the rescinding of the law? Saint Paul said the very 
opposite : 'Love is the fulfilling of the law, not its destruc- 
tion ; and thus he re-echoed the words of Jesus, T am not 
come to destroy the law, but to fulfill.' " 

A friend has no more right to steal my money than 
an ordinary thief. Both are under exactly the same obliga- 
tions. One is under a law-system, to be restrained and pun- 
ished according to law ; the other is under a grace-system, 
self-restrained by the power of love. 

The world of sin, suffering, sorrow, poverty, and of a 
thousand bodily and spiritual needs, is not to be deserted 
on this the most beautiful and holy of days ; but the day 
is to be made more beautiful and holy still by reverent 
meditation, devout worship, and humble service. The Sab- 
bath was given for humanity's good ; mankind is not given 
to it. The day is for our help and blessing; we are not 
in ritualistic bondage to it. 

The "rest" of God is not the rest of inaction. The 
Sabbath rest that remaineth for the people of God will not 
be a rest of inaction. But we may be sure that it will 
be most restful. 

In reply to a question asked by a member of his class 
with reference to the nature of true Sabbath-keeping, the 
writer said, in substance: Ordinarily, no doubt, you ought 
to find joy and strength in the public worship of the church, 
and in the preaching of the Gospel; but if Miss M. were 
very sick, and in sore need of some one's nursing, and you 
were the only one that could well care for her, you would 
be a Sabbath-breaker not a Sabbath-keeper, if you were 
to attend church instead of working hard, if necessary, for 
her comfort and safety. And in such service one ought to 



STUDY VIII. 25 

find rest of mind and heart. This is not excess of liberty, 
but highest, holiest law. 

Neither men and women of wealth, nor the hard-working 
poor, are justified in using the Sabbath for a worldly holi- 
day ; but men, women, and children, from ill-ventilated rooms, 
and after days of confining toil may, if they will, religiously 
and thankfully spend a part of the sacred time under the 
sky, in the fields, and among the trees, the first temple of 
God, their Maker and bountiful Father. 



Study VIII. 



Read Exod. x.xxi. 12-17. 

By an act of grace Jehovah God entered into a covenant 
with his people; and the Sabbath was especially emphasized 
as a sign and pledge of this covenant relation. It was to 
be a constant symbol of covenant privileges and covenant 
obligations. Sabbath rest and Sabbath worship must not be 
looked at in their bare outward form, but must find their 
real meaning in God's covenant relation with man. Not only 
did the inner and spiritual side of the law of God shine 
through the Sabbath as a form, as it also shone through 
sacrifice and other ceremonies, but these outward acts of 
worship were divinely appointed means for the actual realiza- 
tion of communion between God and the worshiper. 

Nitzsch, — see Oehler's Old Testament Theology, — in his 
lectures on Christian Theology, says : "Th,e whole Old. 
Testament ought to be and must be a representation and 
exercise of the process of sanctification. The whole nature 
of the symbols and ceremonies of Moses is different from 
those of the heathen, although much in the outward forms 
in heathenism and the Old Testament seems to be quite 
similar. The heathen ceremonies effect material union with 
the divinity by working magically. There is not a single 
usage in the institutions of Moses in which communion with 
God is effected in a magical way through the senses, but 
all have a purely symbolical nature." That is, they are to 
express, purify, and strengthen actually existing covenant 
relations between God and his people. To keep the Sabbath 
holy was an acknowledgment that the Sabbath-keeper was 
sanctified unto the Lord. Sacrifice meant prayer, thanksgiv- 



26 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

ing, and devotion; to keep the Sabbath is to confess that 
the Maker and Ruler of the heavens and the earth is our 
God and Father in and through whom we hope to find rest 
after toil. 

The Sabbath was to be a holy and perpetual sign of 
Israel's relations with Jehovah God that were based upon 
his gracious covenant ; and, if reverently and faithfully ob- 
served, it would help to keep them in close fellowship with 
"Jehovah who sanctifieth you." 

These principles and these human needs are universal, 
and in strictest accord with the Gospel ; and it is a natural 
and reasonable inference that such should still be the recog- 
nized place and significance of the Sabbath in the moral 
and religious life of men today. If the spiritual and ethical 
ends of the Sabbath as set forth in this passage from Exo- 
dus are out of harmony with the spirit and purpose of the 
New Covenant, if, indeed, they are not essentials in the 
covenant of grace, then this Scripture has no importance 
or value for us beyond that which always belongs to the 
history of any great religion. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, 
and Luke, is higher in authority than Law, Prophecy, Psalms, 
or Epistle ; and by him are they to be interpreted. And 
though now "not under law but under grace," that is, not 
under a system of legalism, but of gracious love, we are not 
beyond the need and help of the Sabbath as a fitting and 
beautiful symbol of our faith in God our Creator, and as 
a holy sign of our covenant communion with him who would 
sanctify us unto himself. The six "secular" days need the 
hallowing influence of the "sacred" seventh day. The world 
needs this weekly witness against practical atheism, and this 
call to a rest in God. One can rest in him every day; but 
one is in danger of not finding this daily rest, it is to be 
feared, who disregards the Sabbath's help. The word "sol- 
emn" in the fifteenth verse does not mean sad, but sacred, 
devout, in a manner worthy of holy and spiritual things. 

Study IX. 

The Sabbath was not only an individual matter and a 
sign of individual covenant fellowship with God, but it was 
also a national institution and a sign of national covenant 
relations with Jehovah God who had called Abraham, de- 



STUDY IX. 27 

livered the children of Israel out of Egyptian bondage, and 
elected them to a large place in the world's moral and re- 
ligious history. Hence to profane the Sabbath was both 
a sin and crime, punishable to a degree of severity con- 
sonant with the civil and religious conditions and spirit 
of that age of the world, but quite out of accord with the 
spirit and purpose of the New Covenant. All social, civil, 
moral, and religious institutions, laws, customs, rewards, and 
penalties, are, in no small measure, a revelation of the world's 
then existing conceptions of God, man, religion, and righteous- 
ness. 

According to the Mosaic legislation every one who pro- 
faned the Sabbath was to be cut off from among his peo- 
ple, that is, excommunicated as a kind of outlaw; and surely 
put to death. Now it has been seriously affirmed, in ig- 
norance, it is to be supposed, of the principles of historical 
interpretation, that a commandment enforced by such a 
penalty, must have been of a purely temporary character. 
This was the reasoning of a little book that came into my 
hands when, years ago, I was investigating the Sabbath 
question. The purpose, of course, was to try to show that 
there was no Sabbath before the Jewish period and none 
after it ; that the Sabbath was only an institution of Mosaism 
and Judaism. 

Now let us extend this principle of reasoning to other 
requirements of the Mosaic legislation and see what it would 
prove if adopted. 

He who blasphemed the name of Jehovah must be stoned 
to death. 

Read Lev. xxiv. 16. 

What a dreadful penalty ! Hence the law against blas- 
phemy must have been «only Jewish and temporary ! 

If any man or woman was found to have transgressed 
the divine covenant by worshiping false gods the transgressor 
must be put to death. 

Read Deat. xvii. 2-7. 

How severe a penalty! Hence the Mosaic law against 
serving and worshiping other gods must have been only 
Jewish and temporary ! 

A stubborn, rebellious, and wicked son who would not 
obey the voice of his father or mother was to be stoned to 
death by the men of his city. 



28 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

Read Dent, xxi, 18-26; Lev. xx. 0. 

What an inhuman punishment ! Therefore the law of 
disobedience to parents was merely Jewish and not universal ! 

Adultery and other gross forms of immorality were pun- 
ishable by death. 

Read Lev. xx. 10-16. 

Who is ready to affirm that these awful penalties rule 
out such laws from the category of the permanent and the 
universal ? 

What then is truth and reason here? Many Mosaic 
laws were at once religious, moral, and civil, because theo- 
cratic ; consequently to disobey them was a state offence. 
Transgression of law must be punished in some way. The kind 
of punishment may change with changing conditions and 
advancing wisdom and humaneness without affecting the 
essential nature and quality of the law itself. And it is 
according to historical and rational principles of interpreta- 
tion to say that the severe penalties mentioned above were 
parts of an ancient and temporary mode of administering 
laws that were in themselves essentially holy, just, and good; 
and the holiness, justice, and goodness of the Old Testament 
have become part and parcel of the New Covenant. Such 
is the teaching of Jesus and Paul. 

In the Mosaic code there are five classes of crime pun- 
ishable by death. In England two hundred years ago there 
were 148 capital crimes. — Hebrew Life and Thought, 
Houghton. 

Study X. 

One who believes in the God and Father of Jesus Christ 
ought not to find it hard to believe that a wise and good 
divine providence so governs the course of nature that ordin- 
ary labor is not necessary on the Sabbath day, "in order 
to make a living." 

Read Ex. xxxiv. 21. 

We may confidently expect that the good God, our heav- 
enly Father, has done his part toward our making a living 
and making, what is a thousand times better, a life; and that 
we can get a living and make a life, if we will only do 
our part faithfully and well. 



STUDY X. 29 

Read Ex. xxxv. 1-3. 

Moses felt that he spoke by Jehovah's authority, and for 
the best miorail and spiritual interests of the people. It is six 
working days, not six idle days, that entitle one to the 
rest of the seventh day, and to its needed privileges and bless- 
ings. A holy day is one set apart from other days for a 
particular and religious purpose. The word solemn does 
not mean sad or gloomy; the phrase solemn rest to Jehovah 
means a rest observed with reference to Jehovah, a Sab- 
bath day kept with respect, thoughts, feelings, and dignity, 
that become a holy day. Such things as smith-work and 
cooking were not to be done on the Sabbath; hence they 
were to kindle no fires that day, in that climate. To use 
this requirement and the penalty attached as an argument 
against the perpetuity of the Sabbath idea and institution, 
is to show a strange lack of the historical sense. And for 
a devout and strict Jew to employ a gentile servant to light 
his fire for him on the Sabbath does not seem to be any bet- 
ter. To suppose that this forbids fire in cold weather and 
rigorous climates is to do violence even to the spirit of the 
Old Testament, not to say the merciful New Covenant. 



Study XL 



Read Lev. xix. 1-4, 2g, 30. 

The aim of Mosaism was to put the children of Israel in 
right relations with Jehovah their God, because good re- 
ligion and morals depended upon such right relations. Pure 
monotheism had a long and hard struggle for the supremacy, 
against polytheism and henotheism; and higher standards 
of character and conduct sought the overthrow of lower 
standards of morals. And the centuries witnessed a progress 
from primitive and crude ideas and customs, and forms of 
religion that were corrupting, toward Christian theism and 
the Christian morals of the New Testament. 

The above passage from Leviticus is one of deep religious 
and moral insight. The divine holiness was a fundamental 
principle of the entire law, and the ground of the covenant 
that God made with his people. Holiness, holiness like Je- 
hovah's and because he is holy, and escape from the grossest 
impurity, seem to be made to depend upon the practical 



30 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

recognition of divinely ordained and right family relations, 
the keeping of Jehovah's Sabbaths, the pure worship and 
service of Jehovah as the one only true and living God, 
and due and reverent regard for sacred places. And the 
Sabbath is given a central and essential place in this Scripture, 
as though divinely appointed to be a protection for religion, 
the home, and purity. And it does not seem narrow-minded 
to say that the religion, homes, and social life of modern 
times would be made purer, stronger, and better, by a more 
faithful observance of the principles of this passage from an- 
cient Leviticalism. 



Study XII. 



Read Lev. xxiii. 1-3, 37, 38. 

The Sabbath stands at the head of the list of set and 
holy feasts, seasons and convocations. It was first in rank 
and supreme in importance. It was as though the other sacred 
times and gatherings were to derive their sacredness and chief 
significance from their connection with the weekly Sabbath, 
whose spirit and purpose felt week by week were to be car- 
ried on to the less frequent and more ceremonial religious and 
joyful seasons and feasts. "Solemn" has here its old-fash- 
ioned meaning of fixed or stated and reverent. 

Notwithstanding this provision for holy assemblies on the 
Sabbath, and the custom in later Old Testament and in Xew 
Testament times, it is taught even now through unscriptural 
bondage to the letter, that the fourth commandment forbids 
the public Sabbath congregation. 

Read Lev. xxiv. 5-9. 

"The rite of 'the presence-bread,' " says the Hastings 
Bible Dictionary, "is one of the fairly numerous survivals 
from the pre-Mosaic stage of the religion of the Hebrews, 
and goes back ultimately to the naive conception that the 
god, like his worshippers, required and actually partook of 
material nourishment. No doubt, as W. R. Smith has pointed 
out, this idea 'is too crude to subsist without modification 
beyond the savage state of society.' In the case of the show- 
bread, it may be suggested that the odour of the 'hot bread' 
(1 Samuel xxi. 6) was regarded in ancient times as a 'sweet 
savour,' like the smell of the sacrifice to Jehovah (Gen. viii. 



STUDY XII. 31 

20, 21). In any case the custom of presenting solid food 
on a table as an oblation to a god is too widespread among 
the peoples of antiquity to permit of doubt as to the origin 
of the rite among the Hebrews. 

"While, however, it must be admitted that the rite of the 
presence-bread had its origin in the circle of ideas just set 
forth, it is not less evident that, as taken up and preserved 
by the religious guides of Israel, the rite acquired a new and 
higher significance. The bread was no longer thought of as 
Jehovah's food in the sense attached to it in an earlier 
age, but as a concrete expression of the fact that Jehovah 
was the source of every material blessing. As the 'continual 
bread,' it became the standing expression of the nation's 
gratitude to the giver of all for the bounties of his providence. 
The number twelve was later brought into connection with 
the number of tribes of Israel (Lev. xxiv. 8), and thus, 
Sabbath by Sabbath, the priestly representatives of the nation 
renewed this outward and visible acknowledgement of man's 
continual dependence upon God. The presence of the show- 
bread in the developed ritual, therefore, was not without a 
real and worthy significance." And the Sabbath was honored 
by being appointed as the time for this symbolical act of 
thanksgiving and praise. And the historical origin and de- 
velopment of the ceremony is an excellent illustration of the 
origin and development of much of Mosaism, as men were 
led to purer and higher conceptions of God and religion. 



Study XIII. 

Read Lev. xxv. 3, 4. 

The land's sabbatical year and other symbolical sabbaths 
derive their religious meaning and use from the weekly Sab- 
bath's moral, social, and spiritual value. 

Read Lev. xxvi. 1, 2. 

True spiritual Sabbath-keeping and reverence for the 
sanctuary would remind the people every week of Jehovah 
their God, and thus help to keep them from idol-worship. 
Note how the law against idolatry, the Sabbath commandment, 
and enjoined reverence for the sanctuary, go before promised 
good and threatened evil. Sabbath-breaking, apostacy from 



32 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

God, and the natural and inevitable spiritual, moral, social, 
and national results would come together. What a plain 
and blessed witness for our Maker, Benefactor, and Re- 
deemer, would a universal regard for the Sabbath of the 
Lord our God be today ! 

Read Num. xxv'ni. Q, 10. 

The Sabbath was not marked, like other special occasions, 
by any peculiar ceremonies and offerings, but simply by doub- 
ling the regular daily sacrifice. This would ceremonially 
seal the holy day as the day of consecration or sanctifying 
day of all the week, as the queen of the days. 



Study XIV. 



Read Deut. iv. 13; v. 1-3. 

Whether the words "he wrote them upon two tables of 
stone" be taken literally or figuratively matters but little, 
for figurative language is often quite as forcible as the lit- 
eral, and poetry is frequently more expressive than prose. 
These words attest the divine origin and sovereign authority 
of the "ten commandments." 

The Decalogue, the ethical code introductory to the Sina- 
itic legislation, and of which the Sabbath commandment was a 
central part, fundamental to both tables, was the basis of 
the Old Covenant. This fact gives it great significance, 
dignity and worth. The Ten Words were the supporting 
pillars of the great Hebrew religion, and set forth the prac- 
tical and holy conditions upon which many a rich blessing 
for the ancient people of God depended. And it is the 
testimony of history and experience, and of writers upon 
religion and ethics that they still represent great spiritual 
and moral values. 

Read Deut. v. 12-15. 

V. 12. The Sabbath day was to be observed, i. e., regard- 
ed, kept in mind, honored; in a holy manner, i. e., as a day 
separated from the others for religious ends ; and as a mat- 
ter of obedience to Jehovah their God. 

V. 14. How good it would be if we could regard the 
Sabbath, and do all things "sacred" and "secular," "unto 
Jehovah our God." 



STUDY XIV. 33 

Unless the Bible was written by men lacking in common 
sense and common honesty, it is at least deserving of as fair 
treatment as we give to other books ; and in the light of 
related Scripture it is only fair to say that "any work" 
must refer to the ordinary labors of the six working days, 
to any work out of harmony with the spiritual character 
and purpose of the Sabbath day. "Thou," "son," "daughter," 
"man-servant," "maid-servant," "ox," "ass," "cattle," "strang- 
er," i. e., a sojourner or foreigner — these are important re- 
ligious, moral, social, educational, economic, and political 
factors in home, community, church, industrial, and national 
life; and the ancient legislator was more up-to-date than 
we of the twentieth century may sometimes suppose. It was 
the object of the Sabbath to help place men and families 
and property in right relation with God; and when persons 
and things are in right relations with God, the public welfare 
and private well-being are sure to follow. 

It was the divine intention that the Sabbath should bring 
a blessing to both man and beast. This is also the teaching 
of Exodus xxiii. 12 : 

Six days shalt thou do thy work, and on the seventh day 
thou shalt rest ; that thine ox and thine ass may have rest, 
and the son of thy hand-rnaid, and the sojourner, may be 
refreshed. 

V. 15. In Exodus xx. 11, 

For in six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the 
sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day; 
wherefore Jehovah blessed the sabbath day and hallowed it, 

a universal reason is given for the Sabbath law ; in this 
place a national reason is given. Deliverance from Egypt 
was not given as the ground for instituting the Sabbath, but 
as a ground for its religious observance by the Jews. And 
they were to remember their bondage and their deliverance, 
that they might be kind to stranger, man-servant, maid- 
servant and cattle. The right use of the Sabbath rest would 
be a great social leveler and promoter of humane feelings. 
It is not scriptural Sabbath rest and worship when these 
are enjoyed at the unholy cost of a servant's or any creature's 
unbroken toil. This is to make the Sabbath service and priv- 
ileges an abomination to the God and Father of all men, 
rich and poor, master and servant, and of all creatures. 



34 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

And as the Sabbath was appointed to be a regular memo- 
rial «of Israel's escape from the bondage of Egypt, so ought it 
to remind us, week by week, of our redemption from the 
worse bondage of sin, and of the Sabbath rest that remaineth 
for the people of God. 

OTHER SABBATIC TIME 

For accounts of sabbatic days and periods besides the 
weekly Sabbath, see the following Scripture : Leviticus xvi. 
29-31; xxiii. 4-8, 26-32; xxv. 1-17; xxvi. 34-43; Numbers 
xxviii. 16-25. 

Study XV. 

We begin now our study of the historical and prophetic 
portions of the Old Testament. 

The Chronicler takes pains to record how the sons of 
the Mohathites were over the showbread to prepare it every 
Sabbath and how David and Solomon arranged for the burnt- 
offering morning and evening on the Sabbath. 

Read 1 Chron, ix, 32; 1 Chron. xxiii. 24, 30, 31; 2 
Chron. ii. 4, 8, 12, 13. 

In Israel, even in the days of bad kings, the Sabbath was 
regarded. Religious services of some kind were regularly 
held, it is believed, by the prophets, in the name of Jehovah. 
For when the son of the Shunamite woman died, she great- 
ly desired to go to the prophet Elisha, the man of God, 
and prayed her husband to send her. 2 Kings iv. 23-25. 

The question whether both the new moon and the Sab- 
bath observance are universal and abiding or not, is to be 
settled by sucih Scripture as Genesis ii. 1-3 and the Deca- 
logue; by their evident place in the Old Testament religion; 
and by the teaching and practice of Jesus. 

As a matter of history the new moon festival declined 
in influence while the Sabbath increased. 

In the days of the wicked Athaliah, the queen mother, 
Jehoiada the priest, and the leader of a righteous revolution, 
regulated the duties of temple and palace guards by the Sabbath. 

Read 2 Chron. xxiii. 4, 8. 
See also 2 Kings xi. 1-12. 
There seems to have been a canopied seat for the king 



STUDY XVI. 35 

and family's use in the house of Jehovah on the Sabbath, 
or a covered way or colonnade along which the king could 
pass when going from the palace to the temple on the Sab- 
bath day: 2 Kings xvi. 18. 

The good Hezekiah was another king who honored the 
Sabbath and other sacred time by appointed sacrifices : 
2 Chron. xxxi. 3. 



Study XVI. 

The prophet Amos thus condemns the greed, oppression, 
and dishonesty of 'his times : 

Read Amos viii. 4-8. 

Prof. George Adam Smith says concerning this re- 
markable passage, in the Expositor's Bible: "The exist- 
ence at this date of the New Moon and Sabbath as days 
of rest from business is interesting; but even more interest- 
ing is the peril to which they lie open. As in the case of 
the Nazarite and prophets, we see how the religious insti- 
tutions of the people are threatened by worldliness and greed. 
And, as in every other relevant passage of the Old Testa- 
ment, we have the interests of the Sabbath bound up in 
the same cause with the interests of the poor. The Fourth 
Commandment enforces the day of rest on behalf of the 
servants and bondsmen. When a later prophet substitutes 
for religious fasts the ideals of social services, he weds with 
the latter the security of the Sabbath from all business (See 
Isaiah lviii). So here Amos emphasizes that the Sabbath 
is threatened by the same worldliness and love of money 
which tramples on the helpless. The interests of the Sabbath 
are the interests of the poor. The enemies of the Sabbath 
are the enemies of the poor. And all this illustrates our 
Saviour's saying, that the Sabbath was made for man." 

The prophet Hosea declares that a part of the conse- 
quences and punishment of Israel's sins shall be loss of the 
Sabbaths: Hosea ii. 11, 12. 

History and observation teach that an utter disregard of 
the Sabbath and that for which it stands, — which is godless- 
ness; and spreading moral disaster, belong together. True 



36 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

religion is historical, moral, and physical. National, social, 
and physical blessings are the gifts of God. Their coming 
and going are conditioned upon the obedience and dis- 
obedience of the holy, just, good, spiritual, ethical, and 
physical laws of our Maker and heavenly Father. 



Study XVII. 



Isaiah calls upon heaven and earth to hear his solemn 
charge against a corrupt and corrupting people : 

Read ha. i. 10-20. 

This passage does not teach that Jehovah God did not 
care to have the people offer sacrifices, or enter his courts, 
or burn incense, or observe the new moon, or keep the Sab- 
bath, or hold solemn meetings, or celebrate holy feasts., or 
spread forth their hands in prayer ; but it does mean that 
these externals of religion were an abomination if they 
who practice them are guilty of rebellion against God, vio- 
lence, moral uncleanness, evil-doing, and oppression, instead 
of being kind, clean, well-doing, just, willing, and obedient. 

All religiousness, church-going, forms of prayer and praise, 
gifts of money, church membership, Sabbath-keeping, Sabbath 
reform work, are wearying to a holy and righteous God, 
and a trouble to Him, unless the religious, the church mem- 
ber, the worshiper, the giver, the Sabbath-keeper, the Sabbath 
reformer, is personally pure, true, and good. 



Study XVIII. 

Read Jer. xvi'i. 19-27. 

The prophet Jeremiah announced to the kings and peo- 
ple of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, in the name 
of Jehovah, that the prosperity, permanence, and religion 
of the nation would depend upon a hallowed Sabbath ; while 
an unhallowed Sabbath, and traffic and needless work on 
that day would bring a devouring fire. 

Jeremiah prophesied just before and just after the 
Babylonian Captivity, a captivity due not to the nation's 
old age and the infirmity of years, but to the sins and lux- 



STUDY XVIII. 37 

uriousness of princes, priests, and people. This fact gives 
a special weight to his message. 

The prophet does not attribute as much significance 
and value to mere work, traffic, and burden-bearing on the 
Sabbath, or to the mere withholding from these things on that 
sanctified day, as one might at first suppose. Their im- 
portance is in what they revealed of the state of men's hearts. 
No one can be truly religious on the Sabbath and be irre- 
ligious on the six other days of the week; no one can truly 
honor God on the seventh day and dishonor him from the 
first to the sixth days ; no one can keep the Sabbath in a 
spiritual way and keep the other days for sin; no one can 
sincerely worship and serve God and treat his fellows un- 
justly and oppressively; no one can truly love God and not 
truly love man also. Such seems to be the real spiritual 
meaning of these words of the old prophet of Judah ; and with 
this interpretation agrees a passage from the Sayings 
of Jesus, a very old manuscript discovered on the 
site of Oxyrhynchus, one of the chief cities of ancient Egypt, 
about 120 miles south of Cairo, on the edge of the western 
desert : 

"Jesus saith, Except ye fast to the world, ye shall in 
no wise find the kingdom of God; and except ye make the 
Sabbath a real Sabbath, ye shall not see the Father." 



Study XIX. 

At length Judah's sins brought the people into captivity, 
and Jehovah caused solemn assembly and Sabbath to be 
forgotten in Zion : 

Read Lam. ii. .5, 6. 

Among the gifts of God to his people when he brought 
them out of Egypt was the Sabbath, to be a sign between 
him and them, that they might know that he was Jehovah 
that sanctified them. But instead of hallowing their De- 
liverer's Sabbaths, that they might know him as Jehovah 
their God, they profaned them and lost communion with 
the Lord. Then in righteous judgment they were scattered 
among the nations and dispersed through the countries. Such 
is the teaching of Ezekiel, prophet of the Exile : 

Read Ezek. xx. 10-24. 



38 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

Even the priests hid their eyes from the Sabbaths and 
from other holy things : 
Read Ezek. xxii. 26. 

Closely connected with the idolatry and impurity of the 
capital cities of Samaria and Jerusalem, that brought on 
such grievous punishment, was the profanation of the 
Sabbath : 

Read Ezek. xxiii. I, 36-39. 

In vision the prophet beheld the future glory of the 
Lord's redeemed people, under the figure of restored worship. 
The priests "shall hallow my Sabbaths." The east gate of 
the temple's inner court, shut the six working days, shall 
be opened on the Sabbath days; and prince and people shall 
worship at that holy place and time : 

Read Ezek. xliv. 15, 24; xlv. 17; xlvi. 1-4, 12. 

Upon Israel's return from the captivity in Babylon every 
man shall be blessed that keeps the Sabbath and refrains 
from doing evil ; the Sabbath and covenant-keeping eunuchs 
shall be given a memorial, i. e., place or part in the Lord's 
house, and a name better than sons and daughters, and for- 
eigners who do not profane the Sabbath and have joined 
themselves to Jehovah, shall be brought to his holy moun- 
tain and made joyful in his house of prayer: 

Read Isa. lvi } 1-8. 

Study XX. 

A wonderfully great promise is connected with faithful 
and cheerful Sabbath-keeping in Isaiah lviii. 13, 14. 

"If thou turn away thy foot," etc., i. e., "If thou treadest 
not its sacred soil with the foot of everyday business." 

"Thine own words," i. e., words out of harmony with 
"my holy day." 

"Upon the high places of the earth," i. e., in national 
exaltation. 

This 58th chapter of Isaiah relates, first, to practical 
righteousness, and then closes with a passage that exhorts 
to "the observance of one form, and places the keeping of 
the Sabbath on a level with the practice of love." 



STUDY XX. 39 

"Our prophet, then, while exalting the practical service 
of man at the expense of certain religious forms, equally 
exalts the observance of Sabbath; his scorn for their formal- 
ism changes, when he comes to it, into a strenuous enthu- 
siasm of defence. This remarkable fact, which is strictly 
analogous to the appearance of the fourth commandment in 
a code otherwise consisting of purely moral and religious 
laws, is easily explained. Observe that our prophet bases 
his plea for Sabbath-keeping, and his assurance that it must 
lead to prosperity, not on its physical, moral or social bene- 
fits, but simply on its acknowledgment of God. Not only 
is the Sabbath to be honored because it is the Holy of Je- 
hovah and Honourable, but making it one's pleasure is 
equivalent to -finding one's pleasure in him. The parallel 
between these two phrases in verses 13 and 14 is evident, 
and means really this : Inasmuch as ye do it unto the Sab- 
bath, ye do it unto me. The prophet, then, enforces the Sab- 
bath simply on account of its religious and Godward aspect. 
Now, let us remember the truth, which he so often enforces, 
that the service of Man, however ardently and widely pur- 
sued, can never lead or sum up our duty, that the service of 
God has, logically and practically, a prior claim; for without 
it the service of Man must suffer both in obligation and in 
resource. God must be our first resort — must have our first 
homage, affection and obedience. But this can not well 
take place without some amount of definite and regular and 
frequent devotion to him. In the most spiritual religion 
there is an irreducible minimum of formal observance. Now, 
in that wholesale destruction of religious forms, which took 
place at the overthrow of Jerusalem, there was only one 
institution, which was not necessarily involved. The Sab- 
bath did not fall with the Temple and the Altar; the Sab- 
bath was independent of all locality; the Sabbath was possible 
even in exile. It was the one solemn, public and frequently 
regular form, in which the nation could turn to God, glorify 
him and enjoy him. Perhaps, too, through the Babylonian 
fashion of solemnizing the seventh day, our prophet realized 
again the primitive institution of the Sabbath, and was re- 
minded that, since seven days is a regular part of the 
natural year, the Sabbath is, so to speak, sanctioned by the 
statutes of creation. 

"An institution, which is so primitive, which is so in- 
dependent of locality, which forms so natural a part of the 



40 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

course of time, but which, above all, has twice — in the 
Jewish Exile and in the passage of Judaism to Christianity 
— survived the abrogation and disappearance of all other 
forms of the religion with which it was connected, and has 
twice been affirmed by prophecy or practice to be an es- 
sential part of spiritual religion and the equal of social 
morality, — has amply proved its divine origin .and its in- 
dispensableness to man." — Geo. Adam Smith. 

Professor Delitzsch says : "More than other legal in- 
stitutions the Sabbath festival was the means by which Israel 
was united and preserved as a religious community, espe- 
cially in the exile, when a great part of the rest of the cultus, 
being attached to Jerusalem and the holy land, fell into 
disuse. . . . The Sabbath festival, established by law, was an 
educative agency which looked to this goal of all creation, 
and especially of humanity, — the entrance into God's rest; 
it set a limit week by week to the activity of the people 
losing itself in externality and secularism ; by its strict 
prohibition of all work it compelled them to reflect and 
to occupy themselves with God and his Word. The prophet 
does not hedge round this Sabbath commandment with new 
enactments, but demands for the observance of it thorough- 
ness and sincerity, corresponding to the spirit of the letter." 

Study XXI. 

Professor Ryle says in his Nehemiah that "the ob- 
servance of the Sabbath was always the stumbling-block in 
the way of free relations between the pious Jew and the 
Gentile. The temptation to desecrate the Sabbath in order 
to maintain amicable relations with Gentile traders was a 
constant source of religious degeneracy among the Jews." 

In Nehemiah's times, the middle of the fifth century, 
B. C., the worshiping Levites, in acknowledging the good- 
ness of Jehovah, said that he made known unto Israel his 
"holy Sabbath": 

Read Neh. ix, 13, 14. 

Under the splendid leadership of Nehemiah, one of the 
wisest men of Bible times, the people of all classes covenanted 
not to buy wares on the Sabbath day, and to maintain Sab- 
bath worship in the temple : 

Read Neh. x, 31-33. 



STUDY XXI. 41 

In the reform work of Nehemiah as governor of Judah 
he testified against unnecessary labor by the Jews on the 
Sabbath and against traffic on that day ; commanded that 
the gates of Jerusalem should be closed from the beginning 
of darkness before the Sabbath until after the Sabbath; drove 
away merchants and sellers who lodged about the city wall; 
and gave the Levites a special commission to purify them- 
selves, keep the gates, and sanctify the Sabbath : 

Read Neh. xiii, 15-28. 

Such consequences did not hinge on the mere outward 
regard or disregard of the day, in the way of physical rest 
or empty forms of religion. Real Sabbath-keeping was and 
is a piece of spiritual religion. From no other point of 
view can the strong language of the prophets be understood, 
or the legislation of Nehemiah be justified. This is not to 
say that the spirit of Nehemiah was exactly like the mind 
of Jesus ; but he wrought and ruled well in his day. 



Study XXII. 



SUMMARY OF OLD TESTAMENT TEACHINGS. 

Geikie says that the Sabbath was "commanded as a funda- 
mental duty; to mark the wide difference between Israel 
and the other nations ; to foster religious reverence ; and to 
give a religious tone to public and private life." That is, 
the Sabbath was an essential part of Israel's training as the 
Servant of Jehovah. 

Our position is not affected by a truly reverent higher 
criticism of the Bible, unless, indeed, it be to receive added 
strength. We welcome the general results of that con- 
structive, historical, literary, and critical study of the Sacred 
Scriptures which has been lifting the Old Testament espe- 
cially, to a higher level of authority in moral and religious 
things. 

The seventh or last day of the week as a hallowed day, 
along with holy marriage, and other great truths and facts, 
is a prominent feature of the early chapters of Genesis. This, 
and the place of the Sabbath in Law and Prophecy, give to 
it the stamp of essential universality. 



42 SABBATH IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 

The Ten Words from Sinai, though requiring fulfillment, 
not abrogation, by Jesus and Paul, have always been the ad- 
miration of thoughtful minds as a wonderful summary of 
human obligations. Among these ten words the Fourth is 
given a central and significant place, thus being raised to 
a high plane of spiritual and moral values. And whatever 
may have been the pre-historic origin of the Sabbath, "it 
assumed among the Hebrews a new character, being stripped 
of its superstitious and heathen associations, and being made 
subservient to ethical and* religious ends." — Hastings. 

In Deuteronomy the Sabbath receives added honor and 
emphasis by an appeal to Israel's sense of gratitude for 
having been brought out of Egyptian servitude by the mighty 
hand of God. 

In all Leviticalism the Sabbath is represented as a gift 
and blessing for both man and beast, — not as a burden to 
be borne. — Oehler. 

The prophets saw a vital connection between true Sab- 
bath-keeping and spirituality in religion and purity of morals. 
And to them Sabbath relates most of all to God, religion, 
and righteousness of life. By the divine appointment it has 
material and physical use, but its chief ends are spiritual 
and ethical. Scriptural and ideal Sabbath observance is a 
religious service that should include fitting rest for body 
and mind. No ordinance of the State can make any day a 
Sabbath-day, however it be labeled. 

The essence of true sabbatizing is inward and spiritual, 
not outward. The oppressor and the evil-doer can not be 
Sabbath-keepers. Amos viii. 4-10. Isa. i. 13-17. In the 
name of Jehovah, Jeremiah and Isaiah proclaim that holy 
Sabbath-keeping has a living and real connection with right- 
eousness, and with individual and national well-being. Jer. 
xvii, 19-27. Isa. lvi. 1-5. 

They who call the Sabbath a delight, and the holy of 
Jehovah, honorable, shall delight themselves in Jehovah, and 
receive abundant blessing, riding upon the high places of 
the earth. Isa. lviii. 13. 14. In Ezekiel's vision of the future 
glory of the Lord's redeemed people, under the figure of 
restored and pure worship, the priests shall hallow the Sab- 
baths of Jehovah. Ch. xliv. 24. And the exultant oj2d Psalm 
is dedicated to the Sabbath day, and celebrates the good- 
ness of Jehovah and the blessedness of the righteous. 



STUDY XXII. 43 

Modern leaders of religious thought testify to the 
world's need, now, of a Sabbath day; and I have been im- 
pressed as never before by the spiritual and ethical, the 
human and therefore universal significance of the Old 
Covenant teachings concerning the holy Sabbath of Je- 
hovah God. 



PART II 

THE SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



THE SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 



Study I. 

Relation between the two Testaments or Covenants, and 
the authority that Jesus claims as our Teacher in religion 
and morals. 

Read Matt. v. 17-220. 

There is a wide difference between fulfilling and abro- 
gating; and Jesus came to fill the older Scriptures full of 
meaning. He filled the commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," 
so full of meaning that we now know that God does 
not approve either feelings, thoughts, words, or acts of 
hatred. He taught that a bad thought is like a bad word 
in the sight of God; and a bad wish or purpose like a bad 
action. 

Again and again Jesus said, "Ye have heard that it was 
said of them of old time . . . ; but I say unto you." Thus 
he claims highest authority as the moral and religious teacher 
of men. 

Whether then the Sabbath of the Old Testament is 
for Christians or not; and if it is, How we are to keep it, — 
are questions for Christ, not for Moses or the prophets, to 
answer; unless, indeed, they are found to agree with our 
Lord. 



Study II. 



Read Matt. xii. 1-4. 

The Pharisees complained when they saw the disciples 
of Jesus beginning to pluck and eat wheat or barley on the 
Sabbath ; for they held that to pluck heads of grain and rub 
them in the hands on that day was forbidden labor. In 
order to defend his disciples from their complaining critics 
Jesus reminded the Pharisees how, according to Jewish his- 
tory, David and the other hungry men with him, entered into 



48 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the house of God and did eat the holy showbread which no 
one but priests, as a rule, had the right to eat. There 
is not one word here against orderly worship or ceremonial 
observances ; but Jesus teaches that there may be special 
occasions of necessity when human needs are higher and 
holier than mere religious form and ceremony. On this 
particular Sabbath the hungry disciples took, apparently, the 
easiest way of satisfying a natural want, though at the cost 
of a little labor ; and the Master said they did right. But 
this neither justifies useless labor, nor destroys the value 
of good order, in the house and on the day of God. 
The Sabbath is not a burden but a spiritual privilege. 

There is a saying ascribed to Jesus as following his 
conversation with the Pharisees, when they said it was not 
lawful for the disciples to pluck, rub, and eat ears of grain 
on the Sabbath, which impresses scholars as being both 
ancient and genuine : 

"On the same day when he saw one working on the 
Sabbath he said to him, Man, if thou knowest what thou art 
doing thou art blessed ; but if thou knowest not, thou art 
cursed and a transgressor of the law." i. e., If thou art doing 
this work on the Sabbath day conscientiously believing it 
to be a work of necessity, blessed art thou. But if thou 
art acting against thy conscience thou art transgressing 
the law. 

This seems to have been Jesus' habit of mind regarding 
the Sabbath, as it was that of the apostle Paul. — Encyclo- 
paedia Biblica, art. Sabbath. 



Study III. 

The public worship of God, so essential to the experience 
of a common fellowship with our heavenly Father ; and 
special service for our Lord in fitting religious exercises, 
may require that we do work on the Sabbath day. 

Read Matt. xii. $, 6. 

According to the Pharisaic point of view and teaching 
the ministering priests "profaned'' the Sabbath, treated a 
sacred thing with irreverence. According to Jesifs the 
nature of this service was not profanation but religion. 



>■ 



STUDY IV. 49 

The priests, on the Sabbath day, offered burnt-offerings 
of lambs, and flour and oil ; and this required work. But, — 
such is our Saviour's argument, — a literal Sabbath law must 
give way to the important sacrificial worship and temple 
service. To make necessary arrangements for public re- 
ligious worship, and to attend Sabbath meetings, are justified 
by the principles here laid down. 

But Christ is greater than temple or church, because 
God dwells in him in a higher sense than in any buildings, 
however holy. And if one is rendering Christ some special 
service, such as preaching, Sabbath-school teaching, and wor- 
shiping, though it be work, one is doing his Lord's will. 
One may do his or her daily and ordinary work in such a 
way and spirit as to make it really a service of Christ; but 
evidently it is not of this regular work that the Lord is 
here speaking. 



Study IV. 



The law of love is greater than the letter of law, when- 
ever the letter hinders the practice of the former. 

Read Matt. xii. 7, 8. 

The prophet Hosea (ch. vi. 6) was speaking to people 
who offered sacrifices and observed the externals of religion, 
but were wicked in character and conduct; and so he said, 
It is not sacrifice and burnt-offerings that God desires, but 
goodness and the knowledge of God. Sacrifice and burnt- 
offerings were not pleasing to God unless the worshipers 
understood him and were good. 

Jesus said to the Pharisees, Your strict outward observ- 
ance of the Sabbath counts for nothing with my Father, 
because you do not show love, sympathy and mercy toward 
my disciples, your fellow men. God wants both Sabbath- 
keeping, and love, kindness, fairness, and compassion ; but 
if he can not have both, he a thousand times prefers love, 
mercy, and kindness, to any Sabbath-keeping that is possible 
without these virtues. 

Christian disciples may act under the authority of their 
Lord, who has the right to regulate and control the Sabbath ; 
for the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath. 



50 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Study V. 

It is right to do deeds of mercy on the Sabbath day. 

Read Matt. xii. Q-14; Mark Hi, 1-6; Luke vi, 6-11. 

One Sabbath day there was a man in a synagogue with 
a withered hand; and enemies of Jesus asked him if it was 
lawful to heal on the Sabbath day, that they might charge 
him before the council with breaking the Sabbath law by 
working. Jesus answered them by saying, If one of you had 
a sheep and it fell into a pit on the Sabbath day, would you 
not lift it out? How much then is a man of more value than 
a sheep ! Wherefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath 
day. Then in obedience to the Lord's command the man 
stretched forth his hand, and it was restored whole, as the 
other. But the disappointed and angry Pharisees went out 
and took counsel against Jesus, how they might destroy him. 

Necessary work in the way of acts of merciful helpful- 
ness is to be done on the Sabbath day; for suffering humanity 
is of more value than suffering animals, and even suffering 
animals are of more value than the mere letter of the Sab- 
bath law. If husband, wife, father, mother, son. daughter, 
brother, sister, friend, or neighbor, were sick or in distress, 
and needed our care, it would be contrary to the teaching 
of Jesus to neglect them for Sabbath rest, worship, medita- 
tion, or prayer. But our Saviour does not give a shadow 
of justification for a general neglect of proper Sabbath rest, 
worship, reading, meditation, and prayer, for the sake of 
ordinary work or pleasure. 

It became necessary for Jesus to define sharply the new 
order of social and spiritual fellowship which he came to 
institute, and to separate it from the worldly ecclesiastical- 
political ideal of the representatives of orthodox Judaism. 
As the true ethical and spiritual representative of an ideal 
kingdom he was obliged to break completely with the Judaism 
of scribes and Pharisees. — Leighton. And it is very sig- 
nificant that this break involved only a Pharisaised Sabbath, 
not the Christianised Sabbath that was made for man. 

Study VI. 

Our Lord has care both for his people and his Sabbath. 
When describing the great tribulation and suffering that 



STUDY VI. 51 

would attend the destruction of Jerusalem, Jesus said, as 
recorded in Matthew xxiv, 20, And pray that your flight 
be not in winter, neither on a Sabbath. 

This certainly shows that Jesus expected his disciples 
to be regarding the Sabbath at the time of the siege of 
Jerusalem by the Romans, A. D. 70. 

But, as certainly, he can not be understood to be opposed 
to their trying to escape from the awful horrors of that 
siege on a Sabbath day. This would be wholly inconsistent 
with what we have already found to be his doctrine con- 
cerning the Sabbath. One writer says that personal safety 
must not be secured at the expense of Sabbath sacredness, 
which is greater than personal safety. But Jesus teaches, 
as we have seen, that personal safety may be secured in 
complete harmony with the sacredness of the Sabbath. And 
the same writer says that to relieve suffering on the Sab- 
bath is no profanation of it; that the Sabbath was for man's 
spiritual nature ; that physical rest was subordinate ; that 
the rest of the Sabbath does not interfere with personal 
needs ; and that man was not made to serve the Sabbath, 
and thus suffer in his own person. In this instance, then, 
Jesus was more anxious for his disciples than for any rigid 
Sabbath formalism. 

Jesus may have known that his own Jewish disciples 
would not at the time of the siege have risen to a true 
and spiritual view of the Sabbath and so felt at liberty 
to flee from the cruel and murderous Romans and the 
warring Jews. 

And had they known and exercised their freedom from 
mere Sabbath ceremonialism, they would have been exposed 
to Jewish fanaticism, and been hindered by Jewish customs 
relating to the allowed length of a Sabbath-day's journey 
of less than a mile, the closing of city gates on the Sab- 
bath, etc. 



Study VII. 



Read Mark i. 21-34. 

The first Sabbath in Jesus' public ministry mentioned 
by Mark. 

Jesus and his disciples, on the Sabbath day, went to 



52 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the synagogue in Capernaum, where people gathered for 
prayer, Scripture reading, and religious teaching. 

He taught the people, and with such power that they 
were astonished at his teaching. 

In the synagogue there was a man with an unclean spirit; 
Jesus delivered him from the power of evil; and the people 
were amazed at his commanding authority. 

From the synagogue they went to the home of Simon 
and Andrew ; Jesus healed Simon's mother-in-law of a fever ; 
and she ministered unto the guests, probably by preparing 
the usual Sabbath meal. 

After sunset the people brought to Jesus the sick and 
demoniacs ; and he healed the sick and cast out evil spirits. 

The people waited, either for the cool of the evening, 
or because they kept the Sabbath according to the strictness 
of rabbinical teaching; they did not wait because Christ 
was not willing to use his power to heal before sundown 
on the Sabbath. 

Jesus used the Sabbath with mingled freedom and 
reverence. 



Study VIII. 

Read Mark ii. 23-28. 

The Sabbath was made for the benefit of man ; man was 
not made for the sake of the Sabbath. 

Actual reaping and threshing were, of course, unlawful 
on the Sabbath day. The rabbis taught that to pluck grain 
was to reap, and to rub it was to thresh. To walk on grass 
was a kind of threshing, and to pick fruit from a tree was 
to harvest. It was according to such doctrine that the 
Pharisees said unto Jesus concerning his disciples, Behold, 
why do they on the Sabbath day that which is not lawful? 

The Sabbath was made; it owes its existence to some 
one's purpose and authority. Genesis ii. 1-3 and Exodus 
xx, 8-1 1, tell who ordained it, and why. The Sabbath comes 
from God the Creator. 

It was made for man. It is a provision of our Father's 
love for our spiritual, moral, and physical benefit, and for 
our happiness. If we do not so use the Sabbath as to bring 
blessings of mind, heart, and body, to ourselves, our homes, 
our neighborhood, and our country, we are not using it 



STUDY IX. 53 

rightly, no matter how literal our formalism in Sabbath 
observance. 

Man was not made for the Sabbath. The Sabbath is a 
graciously given means, not an end in itself. The highest 
good and the truest happiness of men and women, of boys 
and girls, and of society, is the end; and the comfort, even 
of beasts, is not left out. 

To divorce, in our teaching, the spirit from the letter, is 
mysticism; and the letter without the spirit is dead and 
deadening. But it is the doctrine of our Saviour that there 
are special circumstances under which the mere letter of 
Sabbath law must give way to the spirit, for the sake of 
man who was not made for the Sabbath. 



Study IX. 

Read Mark Hi. 1-6. 

Our Saviour was angry and grieved because of the 
unreasoning selfishness and hardness of heart of some who 
thought they were Sabbath-keepers and he a Sabbath-breaker. 

Jesus' use of the holy day seems to have become known ; 
for enemies watch him with unfriendly purpose, to see if 
he would heal a man with a withered hand on the Sabbath 
day, that they might accuse him of Sabbath-breaking. Their 
customs permitted healing on the Sabbath only when life 
was in danger. Jesus said unto them, Is it lawful on the 
Sabbath day to do good, or to do harm? to save life, or to 
kill? No wonder they held their peace. Then he looked 
round about on them with anger, — anger against their 
selfishness and sin, but, unlike ourselves, without any dis- 
position to retaliate; for he was grieved at the hardening of 
their heart, at their insensibility in the presence of a great 
affliction and of an opportunity to bring relief. 

Not to do good in the way of relieving suffering, when 
one has the opportunity, is the same as to do one a wrong. 

Let us be on our guard against valuing rigorous formal 
Sabbath-keeping above goodness, charity, and kindness. 

To make this grave moral mistake will be to bring against 
ourselves the anger of our Lord, and cause him to look 
with grief upon our lifeless ceremonialism, religious pride, 
and coldness of heart. 

Let us, if it be necessary, with the courage and in the 



54 SABBATH IX THE NEW TESTAMENT 

strength of our Lord, break away from mere conventional 
religion and morality, and treat the Sabbath and our suffer- 
ing fellow men as he did. 

Jesus grants no license to put our feet upon the Sab- 
bath day; for the liberty he taught and practiced is more 
exacting than Pharisaic formalism, because it demands a 
due and reasonable regard both for the letter and spirit of 
religion and righteousness. 



Study X. 

Read Mark vi. i, 2; Luke iv. 16-22, 31, 32. 

Jesus a Sabbath-day Worshiper, Preacher, and Teacher. 

We have our Saviour's example to justify the holding 
of meetings on the Sabbath day for prayer, praise, preaching, 
and teaching. How strange that any one should think that 
the fourth commandment forbids their leaving home and go- 
ing to church ! 

It seems to have been the custom of Jesus, from boy- 
hood up, to go to the synagogue, the place of worship, on 
the Sabbath day. Regular church-going by children, youth, 
and young people, is still a good custom, and one that helps 
to keep our minds and hearts right toward our heavenly 
Father, and one another. 

Rest, reading, meditation, joy, and social enjoyment, in 
harmony with the teaching and example of Jesus, are right 
and proper on the Sabbath day; but let us also not forget 
the great importance of public religious assemblies. 



Study XL 



Read Luke vi. 6-11, xiii. 10-17. 

Jesus the Knower of our thoughts and the Judge of 
our conduct in the matter of Sabbath-keeping. 

There were Pharisees so strict about the Sabbath that they 
held it wrong to tend the sick or to comfort them on that 
day; and these self-righteous and bitter religious spies and 
heresy hunters watched Jesus to see whether he would side 
with them or not, in their explanation of the Scriptures. But 
our Saviour always put principle above party, although he 



STUDY XI. 55 

knew that his enemies were trying to think out some way 
to destroy his influence. How much more their thoughts 
desecrated the Holy Sabbath than deeds of mercy could 
possibly do ! 

As Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues on the 
Sabbath day he healed a woman who had been bowed to- 
gether with some infirmity for eighteen years. The ruler 
of the synagogue, moved with indignation, cowardly said 
to the multitude, not to Jesus or the woman, There are six 
days in which men ought to work : in them come and be 
healed. But the Lord answered, in righteous indignation 
at the moral blindness, spiritual insensibility, and falseness 
of the ruler and his supporters, Ye hypocrites, doth not each 
one of you on the Sabbath loose his ox or his ass from 
the stall, and lead him away to watering? Ought not this 
daughter of Abraham to have been loosed from this bond 
on the day of the Sabbath? No wonder the adversaries were 
put to shame, and the multitude rejoiced. 

In performing some sweet Christian service we may not 
be keeping the Sabbath as cold literalists and formalists 
want us to keep it, and yet we may be doing exactly as 
Jesus wants us to do ; or, we may appear unto men to be 
very strict Sabbath-keepers, and yet in the eyes of our 
Saviour, who knows our minds and hearts, really be Sab- 
bath-breakers. 



Study XII. 



Read Luke xiv. 1-24. 

Jesus at a Sabbath entertainment in the house of a 
leading Pharisee. 

One need not necessarily decline the hospitality of those 
whose morals and religion are opposed to one's own. Luke 
records two other occasions when Jesus accepted the offered 
entertainment of Pharisees, vii. 36-50; xi. 37-52. This was 
a Sabbath meal. Sabbath entertainments, luxurious and 
joyous, were common among the Jews, the food, however, 
being cooked on the day before. We need not hesitate to 
follow our Saviour's example in these respects, if, in our 
measure and authority, we use the occasion as he did, — 
and try to influence men for good. 



56 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

He taught the principles of true righteousness ; and, 
before the meal, he healed a man that had the dropsy. 
Answering the thoughts of the lawyers and Pharisees, Jesus 
said, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath, or not? Not 
wishing to own that it was allowable, and not daring to 
deny it squarely, they took refuge in silence. Then he healed 
the man, and said unto those watching him with jealousy 
and enmity, Which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen 
into a well, and will not straightway draw him up on a 
Sabbath day? And they could not answer again unto these 
things. 

Men's instincts are frequently better than their cold 
formalistic theories. Not many years before this, when a 
poor porter, who afterwards became a famous rabbi, had 
been found half frozen under masses of snow in the window 
of the lecture room of eminent teachers, where he had hid- 
den himself to hear their wisdom, because he had been un- 
able to earn the small fee required for admission, men had 
rubbed and restored him though it was on the Sabbath 
day, saying that he was one for whom it was well worth 
while to break the Sabbath. 

Some of the worst formalism of the Pharisees centered 
around the Sabbath, which had become a national institution 
and a kind of badge of religious exclusiveness and pride. 
Let us and all American Christians be on our guard lest, 
departing from the Sabbath and the Sabbath-keeping of 
Christ, we bring the Sabbath down from a spiritual and 
blessed ordinance of God for man's highest good, to an in- 
stitution of the state, and a sign of religious exclusiveness, 
rather than a means of true fellowship and real service. 

Study XIII. 

Read John v. 1-18. 

A deed of mercy on the Sabbath. 

Jesus had healed a sick man on the Sabbath, and told 
him to arise, take up his bed, and walk. The Jews said it 
was not lawful for him to carry his bed on that day. In 
their bigotry and literalism this was their interpretation of 
the Old Testament Sabbath laws and of such passages as 
Jeremiah xvii. 21, 22. The answer of our Saviour was, My 
Father worketh even until now, and I work. From the 



STUDY XIV. 57 

beginning of human history to that hour God had been 
working, in providence and revelation, for the salvation of 
men from sin, sorrow, disease, and death. From such 
activities Love knows and wants no rest. To cease from 
action is not necessarily the essence of real, spiritual Sab- 
bath-keeping; and to keep from doing needed kindness, when 
Mercy calls to service, is not to keep the Sabbath but to 
break it. Holy Sabbaths had never prevented the heavenly 
Father's redemptive and merciful work for his children; 
they must not hinder his Son who came to minister unto 
the poor and needy. Neither should their sacredness keep 
us from working after the example and in the spirit of our 
Lord and Master. 



Study XIV. 

Read John vii. 22-24. 

Mercy is greater than ritual. 

If a Jewish child was eight days old on a Sabbath he 
was circumcised on that day. This observance would be 
a kind of work and a breaking of the Sabbath law as ex- 
plained by those to whom Jesus was speaking. If then circumcis- 
ion is so important that you will observe it on the Sabbath if the 
eighth day of the child comes on that day, are you angry 
with me, Jesus said, because I have made a man every whit 
whole on the Sabbath? If we practice baptism on the Sab- 
bath, which is real work, shall we not also do the work of 
ministering to the sick, the suffering, the sorrowing, and 
the sinning? Judge not according to appearance, the Lord 
added, but judge righteous judgment. Let us also try to 
get at the heart of things, and at the actual motive and 
purpose of what others say or do. 

Mercy is free, not bound, on the Sabbath. 

I must work the works of him that sent me, while 
it is day : the night cometh, when no man can work, — said 
Jesus ; and then he healed the blind man. The healed man 
was brought to the Pharisees, some of whom said, This 
man (Jesus) is not from God, because he keepeth not the 
Sabbath. They charged him with breaking the Sabbath 
because it was on that day that he had made the clay and 
opened the poor man's eyes. But others said, How can a 
man that is a sinner do such signs? And there was a division 



58 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

among them. How may one feel pretty sure that one is a 
true Sabbath-keeping Christian ? When one is conscious of de- 
siring and seeking to do deeds of mercy and acts of kindness 
on that holy day, in the spirit and with the purpose of Christ. 



Study XV. 

Read Matt, xxvii. 62; Mark xv, 42; xvi, 1; Lake xxiii. 
54-56; John xix. 14, 31, 42. 

Studies XV. and XVI. are not vitally related to the 
doctrine of the Sabbath or the Person of our Lord. The 
impossibility of a completely satisfactory explanation and har- 
mony of these Scriptures is evident from the various con- 
clusions or partial conclusions reached by pious and scholarly 
students. It is not reasonable or necessary to demand an 
exact explanation or harmony. Those were strangely ex- 
citing days and hours ; and that four accounts of such events, 
by honest writers, should appear to differ in some particulars, 
need not surprise us. If we had fuller knowledge concern- 
ing unrecorded incidents ; the writers' sources of information ; 
and the exact meaning of words, most of the difficulties would 
probably disappear. In any event a doctrine of the Sabbath, 
the Sunday, or the divinity of Christ, that depends upon 
some dogmatic interpretation and reconciliation of these 
passages, rests, it may be feared, on insecure grounds. For- 
tunately, truth is never so straitened. 

That the Preparation means the day before the Sabbath, 
sixth-day, or Friday, is altogether probable, if. indeed, not 
quite certain. See Hastings, art. Preparation. Our Saviour, 
then, was crucified on Friday, the Jewish Preparation day. 

The first day of the Passover feast was a sabbath, an 
annual ceremonial sabbath, as we would say (Exod. xii. 16). 
But to suppose that Mark does not refer to the regular weekly 
Sabbath when he says, "the preparation, that is, the day 
before the sabbath," and "And when the sabbath was past;" 
or Luke, when he says, "And it was the day of the prepara- 
tion, and the sabbath drew on . . . And on the sabbath they 
rested according to the commandment ;" or John, when 
he says, "that the bodies should not remain on the cross upon 
the sabbath (for the day of that sabbath was a high day)," 
is to bring to plain speech an unnatural and forced interpre- 
tation. 



STUDY XVI. 59 

That particular Sabbath was both the weekly Sabbath 
of tihe fourth commandment and the first day of the feast 
(Lev. xxiii. 7), and therefore a high day, a day of special 
sacredness. 

Well would it be for us Christians if instead of labor- 
ing up to the last minute of sixth day we prepared for the 
Sabbath in our cooking, and in other ways, that we might 
better keep the day according to the commandment of God 
and the example of his Son. 



Study XVI. 

Read Matt, xii, 38-40; xvi. 21; xvii. 23; xx. iq; xxvii. 
63, 64; xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 1, 2; Luke ix. 22; xviii. 33; 
xxiv, 1-7; xxi. 46; John xx, 1, ig; 1 Cor. xv. 4. 

Compare with these scriptures Genesis xl. 12, 13, 20; 
Esther iv, 16 ; v. 1 ; and 2 Chron. x. 5, 12. 

From these passages it is evident that "three days and 
three nights," "after three days," "three days," and "on 
the third day," in Jewish modes of speech, mean the same. 
The Talmud says, "A day and a night make an Onah, and 
a part of an Onah is as the whole." A Jew, Greek, or, Roman 
would understand "after three days," to mean any time on 
the third day. 

It is a familiar fact that the same words have different 
meanings at different times, in different countries, and with 
different people. When our common English Bible was 
translated "thought" meant anxious thought; what we New 
Yorkers would call a tin pail a West Jersey man would call 
a kettle ; etc. 

Our own brother Ch. Th. Lucky, a Jew by blood; a 
profound scholar ; as familiar with Hebrew modes of 
thought and expression as with the air he breathed ; 
and a humble and devout Sabbath-keeping believer in the 
risen Christ, said that no educated Jew would have any 
trouble in understanding that the crucifixion of Christ on 
Friday and his resurrection on Sunday fulfilled all the re- 
quirements of language as to the time he was to be in the 
grave. 

We might celebrate the resurrection of Christ annually, 
as we do his birth; but there is no teaching that the first 



60 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

day of the week was to become the Christian Sabbath. Our 
Lord made the Sabbath of the Old Testament the Christian 
Sabbath. 

Matt, xxviii. i is not easy of interpretation. According 
to strict Jewish reckoning the Sabbath ended and First-day 
commenced at sundown ; and Matthew may intend to say 
that at that hour the two Marys went "to see the sepulchre." 
For another uncommon use of the verb dawn see Lk. xxiii. 
54, in Greek. 

Verses 2-7 may refer to what took place not immediately 
upon their arrival, but far into the night. This would bring 
Matthew into closer harmony with the other accounts. 

The Greek for 'late on the Sabbath" may be translated 
"after the Sabbath." See Godet, The Twentieth Century New 
Testament, The Modern Speech New Testament, Riddle, 
A Popular Commentary, etc. 

The day may be thought of here in the natural sense, 
from sunrise to sunrise, and dawn mean early Sunday morn- 
ing. See Meyer, Lange, Schafr", Alford, Broadus, The One 
Volume Bible Commentary, etc. Of possible explanations 
this is one of the best. 

But we are ignorant of the exact meaning of some of 
the words ; all the related circumstances are not known by 
us, and, evidently, were not known by every writer ; the 
events were surpassing strange ; each account is based upon 
the writer's own knowledge and object; and very minute 
and complete agreement in all details would arouse suspicion 
of collusion, and rob the narratives of their naturalness and 
freedom of spirit and purpose. Compare the reports of 
four honest people of the same scene or event. I feel, 
therefore, an hundred times stronger assurance of my living 
faith in a crucified and risen Saviour who was and is Lord 
of the Sabbath, than I do of the possibility of a perfectly 
exact interpretation and detailed harmony of our four ac- 
counts of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. 

It might be added that one feels a sad interest in reading, 
as an argument, of Christ's being in "the gloomy tomb on 
that Jewish Sabbath." For it is pretty likely that he and 
the penitent were in paradise that day. — which must have 
been a pleasant place in which to spend the Sabbath. 



STUDY XVII. 6 1 

Study XVII. 

Read Luke vii. 2-9, (compare Matt. viii. 5-12), John xii. 
20; Acts viii. 27, 28; x. 1, 2, 22; xiii. 14-16, 26, 27, 42-48; 
xiv. 1; xv. 21; xvii. 17; xviii, 4. 

The following is a most valuable and important contri- 
bution to the explanation and illumination of these passages : 

"It may be doubted whether the Jews ever secured a 
very large number of proselytes in the full sense, that is, 
of those who accepted circumcision and assumed the obliga- 
tion to observe the law in all its parts ; for the rite of 
circumcision was exceedingly repugnant to the world in 
general. But it is certain that they attached to themselves 
a large multitude of devout worshipers, who attended the 
services of the synagogue and served and honored their 
God. (These Gentile worshipers of the God of the Jews 
were commonly spoken of as devout and God-fearing men. 
See Acts x. 22, 35 ; xiii. 16, 26, and Josephus : Ant. XIV., 
7, 2; B. J. II., 18, 2.) Many such adherents seem to have 
observed the Sabbath and some of the Jewish laws respecting 
food (Josephus : Contra Apionem, II., 30) ; while others 
contented themselves with conforming to the moral precepts 
of the Decalogue, or with the general practice of justice, 
holiness and mercy. It was among these Gentile adherents 
of Judaism that Christianity had its most rapid spread. 
They were prepared for it by their belief in the God who 
was worshiped both by the Jews and Christians, and by 
their acquaintance with the Old Testament, which they heard 
read in the synagogue week after week. . . . How much the 
existence of such circles of God-fearing men and women 
in all the great cities of the empire must have meant to 
Paul, we can easily imagine, and we shall see that he was 
fully alive to the opportunity offered by them." — McGiffert, 
The Apostolic Age, p. 160. 

These people are commonly regarded as being "such 
non-Jews as held to the Jewish synagogue worship and ob- 
served the most elementary Jewish laws of food and purity 
and Sabbath observance, without entering by circumcision 
into the Jewish community. . . . But surely Cornelius would 
have been found in the synagogue on the Sabbath (see Acts 
x. 2, 22), and he is not to be distinguished from the class 
of foreigners informally connected with Judaism, with whom 



62 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

the other passages acquaint us. Another such is the centurion 
who loved the Jewish nation and built them a synagogue 
(Lk. vii. 2-9) ; and another, the eunuch who came to Je- 
rusalem to worship (Acts viii. 27, 28). . . . Although there 
were among the heathen many who were attracted by the 
monotheism and morality of Judaism and attended the syna- 
gogue services, yet these were not in our sense proselytes. 
A heathen could become a Jew only by circumcision." — 
Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible, art. Proselyte. 

According to the Acts these non-Jews "often became con- 
verts to Christianity, and this was an important factor in 
the establishment of the Gentile Christian Church. The 
struggle between St. Paul and the Judaisers (Acts xv, and 
Epistle to Galatians) was an attempt on the part of 
Christian Pharisees to compel Gentile Christians to become 
'proselytes of Righteousness' " by circumcision and keeping 
"the law of Moses." To keep the Ten Commandments did 
not make a Gentile a Jew ; and the Sabbath was not a dis- 
puted question in the Jerusalem conference. — Hastings, Dic- 
tionary of Christ and the Gospels, art. Proselyte. 

What added interest and naturalness these statements 
give to such passages as Acts xiii. 42, 44, 48; and to the 
fact that the Sabbath remained in the Church for centuries. 

Study XVIII. 

Read Romans Hi. 28, 31; vi. 14; vii. 1-7, 12, 14; xiii. 
10; 2 Cor. Hi. 1- 18. 

While deepest piety and greatest learning can not ex- 
haust the rich mines of moral and spiritual truth found 
in Paul's wonderful letter to the Romans, it is believed that 
there is something precious here for beginners, and for boys 
and girls. Bad thoughts and feelings, desires and purposes, 
are, in our heavenly Father's sight, like bad words and 
actions. Hence we are condemned by his holy law, to which 
we can not yet give ideally perfect obedience, as it is ex- 
plained by Jesus in the sermon on the mount. But he will 
forgive, that is, take away the condemnation, upon the con- 
dition of true 'repentance, love, trustfulness, and purposed 
obedience, on our part. Then there must follow loving service 
and obedience that, in their steadfastness and growth, are 
far beyond anything possible to one unforgiven and con- 
demned. This pardon, acceptance, and growing trust, love, 



STUDY XVIII. 63 

and obedience, are what is meant by the big words Justifica- 
tion and Sanctification. If one should long wrong one's 
parents and afterwards come back truly owning up, with real 
sorrow, trustfulness, love, and intention henceforth to be 
obedient, every true parent would gladly and gratefully for- 
give and welcome back such a child. But one is -not then made 
free from obligation to serve and obey, but under the greatest 
obligations to do so. Law is not made void by faith and 
love, but established. One can not easily imagine anything 
more contrary to reason and Scripture than the opinion that 
Christ or Paul did away with law. 

If Paul meant to say that believers in Christ are not under 
high and holy obligation to be obedient to God, he would 
be most self-contradictory. What then does the apostle mean ? 
A criminal transgressor of civil law is under that law's 
condemnation and exposed to punishment; if he is pardoned 
he is released from condemnation and penalty, but it is still 
his duty to be law-abiding. If husbands and wives, parents 
and children, brothers, sisters, and friends, went to statute 
books as the chief source of their knowledge of what they 
ought to do for one another, they would be legalistic, that 
is, under a law or legal-system. In their case the "letter" 
would kill all true affection and trust. If, on the contrary, 
they were true at heart, love would be their principal motive 
and end, their chief ground of obligation, and their best 
guide to right action, though sometimes, of course, needing 
information from the statute books. Christians are not 
under law but under grace ; we serve in newness of the spirit, 
and not in the oldness of the letter. That is, we are not 
under a letter-, law-, or legal-system, that constantly takes 
us to the letter of the law that we may learn what we must 
do for God and man in order to be saved ; but we are under 
a grace-, love-, or spiritual-system, love being our chiefest 
and most exacting law. I try to serve my aged mother, and 
study to find out how I may serve her more and better, not 
that I may become her son but because I am now her son. 
Let us try to keep the Sabbath holy, to honor all the will 
of God, to keep the commandments of Jesus, and hunger 
for a knowledge of more and more to do, not that we may 
at last be saved in heaven ; but because we are now the for- 
given and saved children of our Father in heaven. Thus 
does love become the fulfillment of the law. 

Sometimes one man says to another, If you will labor 



64 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

for me by the day, month, or year, I will pay you wages. 
A man might say to a woman, If you will become my one 
lawful wife, I will furnish you with food, shelter, clothing, 
and protection, and set aside ten thousand dollars as ex- 
clusively your own. All this is a covenant of works ; and 
if the letter of the agreement is the chief or sole ground of 
obligation and fidelity, there is little or no room for true 
life and love. But if a father says to his son, I love and 
believe in you, and all that I have is thine; or if a son says 
to his father, I love and trust you, and my best service and 
obedience shall be given to you willingly ; or if a man and 
woman say, We love and trust each other, all that each of 
us is, or has, or may become, belongs to the other, we have 
all things together, — then here are moral and spiritual cov- 
enants of love and life. The Old or Mosaic Covenant, in its 
externals, is called a covenant of works, though beneath the 
outward there was the real spirit ; and the Decalogue was its 
heart, centre, and basis. The former was glorious because 
it was one stage of redemptive history, and the Jewish re- 
ligion was greatly superior to all contemporary religions. The 
New or Gospel Covenant is one of far greater moral and 
spiritual power, because more manifestly a covenant of grace 
and love. The latter is of surpassing glory, taking the place 
of the former ; Christ, not Moses, is our law-giver ; and 
we are not under the mere letter of law, but under the law 
of love, a law that demands both outward and inward and 
advancing worship, obedience, and service. 

Study XIX. 

Read Gal. iv. 8-u; Rom. xiv. i-7; Col. ii. 16, 17. 

Paul is more tolerant in Romans than in Galatians. 
The disciples in Galatia had been told that they must not 
only believe in Jesus but keep the whole law of Moses in 
order to be saved. "Ye observe days," etc., that is, studiously, 
scrupulously, as if essential to salvation. Galatians was writ- 
ten to overthrow this grave error in doctrine and practice. 

The three passages, though relating to different condi- 
tions, are kindred in meaning. They set forth this funda- 
mental principle of Paul's theology, namely, that the source 
and ground of salvation is a personal relation with God 
through Jesus Christ, made possible by God's grace and our 



STUDY XIX 65 

faith and love. Salvation does not come from obedience to 
the whole of any part of the Mosaic system, moral or ritual. 
Paul's feelings are intense, and his language strong; and 
it must be explained by his teachings as a whole. 

To observe the Mosaic ritual, to scrupulously keep the 
Sabbath, to give mere outward obedience to any command- 
mant of Mosaism, as the ground of our hope of salvation, 
is to do like the heathen, Paul says, who hope, by the ex- 
ternals of their religion, to win favor and gain safety at 
the hands of them that are no gods. Freedom in Christ 
is freedom from such bondage, not freedom from obligation. 

The apostle does not object to formal precept, moral or 
ceremonial, to law or creed; but he does object (a) to the 
doctrine that salvation and Christianity depend on these ; 
and (b) to the doctrine that the whole of Christian life 
and duty can be expressed in letter or statute. 

If then nothing in the Mosaic law or in Gentile re- 
ligions, as such, is binding on Christians on account of be- 
ing contained in them; and if no "good works" of them- 
selves bring salvation, — why keep the Sabbath, and why 
regard such spiritual and moral teachings and precepts as 
are found in the Decalogue, in Hebrew prophetism, and in 
the writings of many Gentiles? Because these have been 
taken up and absorbed into Christianity; and as evidence 
and fruit of our new life with God in Christ. 

Professor H. C. G. Moule in his commentary on Romans, 
has something to say that is quite to the point : "The 'weak 
brother' spends much time in studying the traditional rules 
of fast and feast, and the code of permitted food. He is 
sure that the God who has accepted him will hide his face 
from him if he lets the new moon pass like a common day; 
or if the Sabbath is not kept by the rule, not of Scripture, 
but of the Rabbis. . . . He questions and discusses every- 
thing, with himself, if not with others. He is on the way 
to let his view of acceptance in Christ grow fainter and more 
confused. He walks, he lives ; but he moves like a man 
chained and in prison. . . . There seems to be a broad and 
intelligible difference between the Sabbath-keeping of the 
Jewish law and the Sabbath-keeping of man; the enjoyment 
and holy use of the primeval Rest for man and beast. We 
take it that that duty and privilege is not in question here 
at all. The 'weak' Christian was the anxious scholar of 
the Rabbis, not the man simply loyal to the Decalogue." 



66 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

Study XX. 

Read Hebrews iv. i-io; Revelation i. 10. 

As Farrar says, "The Sabbath is a nearer type of heaven 
than Canaan." This verse shows that the writer did not 
apply the term "sabbath"' to Sunday. And if the passage 
furnishes no positive proof of the perpetuity of the Sabbath 
law, it certainly suggests the most grand and beautiful thought, 
that our weekly Sabbath-keeping ought to be of such a 
character as to be, for ourselves and to others, a symbol 
of the "rest" that believers find in Christ and may enjoy 
forever. 

The Rev. William Milligan, D. D., one of the foremost 
interpreters of the book of Revelation, says : "The 'Lord's 
Day' here referred to may have been the Sunday, the day 
commemorative of that morning when he who had been 
'crucified through weakness, yet lived through the power 
of God.' If so, there was a peculiar fitness in that vision, 
now to be granted, of the risen and glorified Redeemer. But 
it seems doubtful if this is the true interpretation. Proof 
is wanting that the first day of the week has yet received 
the name of 'The Lord's Day,' and it is more in accordance 
with »the prophetic tone of the book before us to think that 
by Saint John the whole of that brief season which was to 
pass before the Church should follow her Lord to glory 
was regarded as 'The Lord's Day.' " 

Professor Clarke, in An Outline of Christian Theology, 
commenting on ch. xx. i-io, says that Revelation is the 
great book of symbols, where every literal thing that is 
mentioned stands as illustrative symbol of some spiritual 
reality. This fact of itself casts doubt upon all literal in- 
terpretations and applications of imagery that is found here. 
The book gloriously exalts Christ and foretells his victory; 
but the language is pictorial and vague, neither intended for 
exact fulfilment nor capable of receiving it. 

How then did the Church come to observe Sunday? 
(i) There is abundant evidence that the Church began to 
depart from New Testament Christianity during and immedi- 
ately after the times of the Apostles and the first century. 

(2) There was strong prejudice, among Gentiles, against 
everything that could be called or thought of as "Jewish." 

(3) "The day of the Sun" was a great day among the 
heathen; and many heathen customs were taken and adapted 



STUDY XXI. 67 

by the Church. (4) These tendencies away from the simple 
teachings of Christ and the Apostles were strengthened 
by the naturalness of some special regard for the resurrection 
day. And the Church came to have many other "sacred" 
days and periods of its own appointment. 

I have no objection to a celebration of the Lord's resur- 
rection; but I must earnestly protest, in the name of truth 
and religion, against the substitution of the "Christian Sun- 
day" for the Sabbath of the Creation Story, of the Decalogue, 
of the holy prophets, of Jesus our Lord, and of Christ's great 
Apostle. 

Study XXI. 

RECAPITULATION AND SUMMARY 

Jesus the Christ was made a member of the then dying 
Jewish Church ; but he became the Founder of the Christian 
Church. Naturally much of his thought, speech, and action 
was under Hebrew forms ; but, for him, these forms could 
not imprison the spirit or hide the face of eternal Truth, 
and when he spoke he spoke for the world to hear. Man 
is greater than the Sabbath, he said; and in harmony with 
this rational utterance, he taught that the Sabbath was made 
for man, and not man for the Sabbath (Mark ii. 27, 28). 
Thus in carrying the Sabbath back to the "beginning," as 
he did in the case of marriage also (Matt. xix. 3-8, Mark 
x. 2-9), he gave to the doctrine of its universality his divine 
sanction. There is no hint at its abrogation; but in teaching 
and practice he sought to lift it into the realm of reason 
and life and out of the swamps of Judaism where, among a 
hundred and one instances, it was thought worth while to 
inquire whether an egg laid on the Sabbath were unclean 
or not. Our Saviour is Lord even of the Sabbath day, and 
so our Example in the use of this hallowed time. How he 
was employed on that day the Gospels tell us again and 
again. Therefore to keep the Sabbath according to the 
law of its Lord would be to testify every week that God 
is, and that he is our Maker; and that the Son of Man is 
Lord over all of life's activities and relations. 

The Seventh-day position is not contrary to any New 
Testament reference to the First-day; to the apostolic history; 
to Paul's attitude toward the Old Covenant; or to his doctrine 
of liberty under the New Covenant. 



68 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

No mention will be made of any Bible scholars or of 
any historians as though their opinions were decisive, but 
to show, upon first-rate authority, that the case is not so 
clearly against our doctrine as many suppose. 

Lk. xxiv. 33-38; John xx. 19, 26. — It was natural for 
the disciples to come together on the evening of the day 
of the Resurrection, and again after eight days. They were 
in fear of the Jews ; strange things had taken place ; some 
doubted the Resurrection news ; and according to Luke they 
were terrified and affrighted when the Lord first spoke to 
them. I rejoice with all believers in these appearances of 
the risen Christ, and in all that they mean of spiritual bless- 
ing and power; and do not wonder that they who religiously 
regard the First-day look back to those meetings with special 
interest. But there is no indication that the disciples had 
gathered together to celebrate the Resurrection day; and that 
Christ desired by his presence to sanction such a purpose. — 
Meyer and others. 

Acts ii. 1. — That the day of Pentecost was on the First- 
day is by no means certain. It may have been on the "Jewish 
Sabbath." — Hackett, Hastings, Purves, and others. 

Acts xx. 7-1 1. — This passage, for many people, is proof 
of the religious observance of the Sunday at that time. It 
is also the opinion of many writers that this breaking of 
bread was on our Saturday evening, and that the ship was 
to sail on Sunday morning. — Hackett, Conybeare and How- 
son. And it is a fair question whether they met to break 
bread, that is for an evening meal accompanied by the 
eucharist, because it was the First-day, or because Paul 
had planned to leave Troas the following day. — Meyer, 
Neander. 

1 Corinthians xvi. 2. — There is absolutely no reference 
here to a public meeting for worship. — Expositor's Bible, 
many Commentaries. Marcus Dods says : "This verse has 
sometimes been quoted as evidence that the Christians 
met for worship on Sundays as we do. Manifestly it shows 
nothing of the kind. It is proof that the first day of the 
week had a significance, probably as the day of our Lord's 
resurrection, possibly only for some trade reasons now un- 
known. It expressly said that each was to lay up 'by him' 
— that is, not in a public fund, but at home in his own purse 
— what he wished to give." 

Revelation i. 10. — That the phrase "Lord's day" came to 



STUDY XXI. 69 

be applied later to the Sunday is not questioned; but proof 
is wanting that the first day of the week had yet received 
this name. — Hastings, Expositor's Bible. 

1 have no desire whatever to rob these few New Testa- 
ment references to the first day of the week of all possible 
religious significance. But, backed by many modern, eminent,, 
and devout scholars, I insist that these instances are not 
to be pressed into service, unduly; and that they ascribe 
absolutely no sabbatic principle to the Sunday. I am willing 
however to take all these Scriptures at any fair value, and 
to unite with my brethren of every Christian faith in any 
fitting annual celebration of the resurrection of our one 
Redeemer and Lord. 

Acts x. 1, 2, 22, 23, 34, 35; xiii. 16, 26, 42, 44, 48 and 
xvii. 17. — Of far greater significance to me are these passages 
in the Acts of the Apostles, and kindred references in the 
Gospels. The persons spoken of here as devout, fearing 
God, and working righteousness, including such men as 
Cornelius, and the centurion of Luke vii. 2-9, and forming 
a numerous class, were non-Jews who, religiously restless 
and believing no longer in heathen gods, had found intellectual 
and spiritual satisfaction in the lofty ethical nonotheism of 
the Hebrew religion. They attended synagogue worship 
and observed Jewish laws of food, purity, and the Sabbath, 
without, however, entering the Jewish community by cir- 
cumcision. These people worshiped God, were acquainted 
with the Old Testament, free from the traditions of Judaism, 
and prepared to welcome a gospel of equal privileges for all 
believers. That the presence of such men and women in 
all the great cities of the empire must have meant much 
to Paul we can easily believe ; and among them Christianity 
had its most rapid spread. — Hastings, McGiffert. This ex- 
plains the now recognized fact that the Sabbath was kept 
for centuries by both Jewish and Gentile Christians, East 
and West. 

2 Corinthians iii. 1-11; Romans iii. 31; vi. 14-16; vii. 
7-16. — We have here and in related Scripture Paul's doctrine 
concerning the Old Covenant, the Decalogue, and the Law. 
The Mosaic "ministration," method, and work, have come 
to an end in Christ and the Cross. We are under the New 
Covenant, the fundamental principle of which is grace not 
legalism. The only "freedom from law" that the New Testa- 
ment knows is freedom from its condemnation experienced 



70 SABBATH IN THE NEW TESTAMENT 

by believers in Jesus. Truth and law can not be abrogated. 
But there is another ministration; grace and love are revealed 
more wondrously; there is a new Priesthood; and the Spirit 
works more within, where the new life from him feels the 
law written on the heart. Had Christ and Paul been under- 
stood there would have been no hierarchy, antinomianism, 
legalism, asceticism, or mysticism; for saving and living faith 
establishes law, and confirms, in Christ, the universal priest- 
hood of believers. Sin in Paul, that is, Paul himself, was 
in the sleep of moral death ; but the law cried, Thou shalt 
not covet, and awakened him to a sense of "the body of this 
death," physical and eternal. He had "sat for his own like- 
ness ;" but when deliverance came through Jesus Christ our 
Lord, he found that the commandment which had been unto 
death was now unto life. The law was holy, and the com- 
mandment holy, and righteous, and good. The newness of 
the spirit had brought infinite expansion to the oldness of 
the letter just as the Saviour taught on the mountain. 

For further discussion of the following group of pas- 
sages see Neander, Purves, Sanday, New Century Bible, 
Hastings, Meyer, and others, in loc. 

Galatians iv. 10; v. 12. — We have here a white-heat 
protest against contemporary Judaism, and the work of those 
false teachers who sought to rob the Galatians of the free- 
dom that had come through Christ. 

Romans xiv. 5. — This passage is a rebuke, always needed, 
of religious scrupulousness concerning food, drink, and the 
regard of mere days. 

Colossians ii, 16-23. — This is a condemnation of Judaism, 
asceticism, and an existing insidious, false philosophy of 
supernatural relations. 

If these passages are against all external observances, 
as such, then Paul is self-contradictory; for outward things 
have a place in both his teaching and practice. 

If they oppose sabbatizing on the Seventh-day they must 
also be against sabbatizing on the First-day ; for the fetters 
of a Christian ordinance would be no better than the Jewish 
yoke. — Adeney in Biblical World for November, 1906. 

The rational and true interpretation of the doctrine of 
Paul and the Master seems to be that it swept away dead 
formalism; the teachings of contemporary, legalistic Judaism; 
lifeless theology and superstitious philosophy; and the out- 
ward observance of any ordinance as though one's salvation 



STUDY xxi. yi 

depended upon it. No set of minute rules is given; but 
principles that may include the Sabbath, baptism, the Lord's 
Supper, prayer, praise, creeds, ordinances, the Sunday, Easter, 
Good Friday, Lent, and so on, are plainly and strongly 
enforced. 

My aged mother has come to live with me. Imagine 
one coming with a statute book saying, Here is a list of 
nineteen things that you must do for her with scrupulous 
regularity, in order to become her son. My indignant answer 
would be, Away with this letter that killeth. I am my 
mother's son by the laws of life and love ; it may be that 
the exacting law of love and life will require not only nine- 
teen but a hundred and nineteen things of filial service. 

Imagine one going to the apostle and saying, Now, 
Paul, in order to become a servant of the Lord and a member 
of his kingdom, you must keep the Sabbath, practice baptism, 
join the church, pay tithes, observe circumcision, drink no 
wine, abstain from meat offered to idols, and so on. The 
apostle would have exclaimed, Away with this spiritually 
and morally deadening letter. I am a child of God and a 
bond-servant of my Lord by the laws of eternal life and 
love. And if the spirit of loyal obedience ; if love to God 
and man ; if the increase of religion, righteousness, and peace, 
require it of me, I will joyously keep the Sabbath, teach 
baptism, unite with the Christian community, give as the 
Lord prospers me, observe circumcision as in the case of 
Timothy and forbid it in the case of Titus, and I will not 
eat flesh, or drink wine, or do anything whereby my brother 
stumbleth. For we are not under law — a regime of legalism 
with a long code of commands and prohibitions, but under 
grace — a regime of the Spirit and the principles of love ; 
and the list of love's commands is infinite in length. 

The boys and girls of our Sabbath schools can see the 
difference between these two ways of saying things : First — 
I love my father and mother, my brother and sister, my 
grandpa and grandma ; and am trying to do everything I 
can for their comfort and happiness. And, second — I do 
not want to be punished, or lose my home, food and cloth- 
ing; and so I will do for father and mother and the rest, 
only what I must do that I may not in any way be punished. 

Theologically, the first is "under grace," the second 
"under law," that is, legalism. 

The Church needs the service of representative and 



72 STUDY XXI. 

royal priests and prophets, and some religious forms to pro- 
mote worship, teach truth, and guide to right doing. The 
problem is how to balance, rationally and spiritually, their 
claims and labors in the realms of ceremony, knowledge, and 
life. Holy love to God and man, good character and conduct, 
fellowship in spiritual realities— these are the supreme things. 
Both Jesus and Paul opposed legalism and formalism— not 
law, beauty and order; human authority in matters of re- 
ligion; and externalism as a substitute for the essence of 
Christianity. Ritual finds its true meaning and worth only 
as it helps to warmth of piety and purity of life. 

According to the teachings of Jesus and Paul concern- 
ing law and liberty, one of the highest grounds of obligations, 
— and there can be none higher, — is "Christian expediency 
and a dictate of Christian feeling." When one becomes a 
Christian, a child of God, one should understand that the 
whole will of our Father is to be done voluntarily and joy- 
ous!}-, out of love and gratitude, and because the doing of 
that will promote individual spirituality and righteousness 
and extends the kingdom of heaven. 



A BRIEF SUPPLEMENTARY HISTOR- 
ICAL SURVEY 

My principal sources are Smith and Cheetham's Dic- 
tionary of Christian Antiquities; McClintock and Strong; 
Newman's Manual of Church History; Hastings ; and Lewis' 
Critical History of the Sabbath and the Sunday. 

The celebration of the Resurrection by some religious 
regard for the Sunday, commenced, no doubt, early in the 
second century; but there is no evidence whatever in the 
Scriptures or in Church history that this was by apostolic 
decree. Whether this and other doctrines still more strange 
were due to the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit, and 
whether they were the product of normal evolution under 
the New Covenant or not, must be determined by an appeal 
to the Bible, history, and experience. 

The struggle of the Sabbath of Jesus against "the day 
called the day of the sun" of Justin Martyr, and "the 
venerable day of the sun" of Constantine, for place and 
power in the life and growth of the Church, was a part of 
that mighty conflict of the religion of Christ and Paul with 
contemporary Judaism, pagan religion, false philosophy, and 
with the principle of authority in religion and of the union 
of Church and State — a conflict that issued in the Papal 
Church with its mingled strength and weakness, good and evil. 

The Sabbath was kept in both the Eastern and the 
Western churches either as a fast or a festival for centuries. 
On to the fifth century and even later the sabbatic principle 
was not conceived as belonging to the Sunday or the Lord's 
day, as it was called. And while the sources referred to 
as showing the early observance of the Sunday in the Church 
are of great value as history, they would not be counted 
as altogether safe guides in every matter of faith and 
practice. After Polycarp (d. 155?), and indeed from even 
an earlier date, as is well known, there was a swift departure 
from the principles of the Gospel, a departure that was not 
evolutionary progress. 

Justin Martyr (d. 165?) describes contemporary religious 
observances on the day of the sun that follows the day of 



74 HISTORICAL SURVEY 

Saturn, the day on which God made the world and on which 
the Saviour rose from the dead. His doctrine of angels, 
demons, baptism, and the eucharist however, would not be 
quite acceptable, I think, to the Church today. His point 
of view as an "apologist" seems to have been determined 
by pagan philosophy, and his theology by a desire to "ac- 
commodate" Christianity to pagan religion. 

Tertullian (b. 150-160) found place in his theology for 
legalism, asceticism, materialism, and a strange doctrine of 
supernatural power in the water of baptism. 

The Didache is a valuable piece of religious history, but 
it would hardly be received as authority in the matter of 
baptism and the ministry, or in its requirement to fast on 
Wednesdays and Fridays, and to say the Lord's Prayer 
three times a day. 

The Ignatian Epistles, a chief bulwark of the papal 
doctrine of the episcopacy, appear in three forms — the longer 
Greek, the shorter Greek, and a Syriac version shorter still. 
Upon the question of genuineness and of there being any 
reference at all to Sunday-keeping see Lewis' full discussion. 
But as the epistles stand in some translations, in the shorter 
Greek form Ignatius substitutes, in doctrine, Lord's day for 
the Sabbath. In the longer form, with an absurd reference 
to the inscriptions of two Psalms as being a prophetic looking 
forward to the "eighth" or Lord's day, he exhorts his readers 
to keep the Sabbath after a spiritual manner, and after the 
observance of the Sabbath to keep the Lord's day as a festival, 
the Resurrection day. 

The unreasoning allegorizing of the Old Testament in 
the Epistle of Barnabas would be condemned by us all. He 
finds, for example, in the circumcision of his servants by 
Abraham a special reference to Christ and the crucifixion. 

Sunday as a religious festival grew up in an environment 
that made its rise natural, but not in the course of a normally 
and progressively developing history of vital religion. The 
Resurrection was indeed a glorious fact ; it was inconvenient 
to observe two days ; opposition to everything thought to 
be Jewish was intense ; Jesus and Paul and the Scriptures 
were misunderstood ; the tendency to compromise with 
paganism and philosophy and sun-worship was strong; and 
the Church kept drifting away from her Founder. 

Too little emphasis was placed upon the practical and 
ethical teachings of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, 



HISTORICAL SURVEY 75 

too much upon the theology and metaphysics of Paul and 
John and the logic of Aristotle. 

Gospel ideas were practical and capable of realization 
in the course of a long process of growth. But religious 
leaders of the early centuries disregarded truth and fact 
more and more; external forms and ecclesiastical authority 
took the place of true Christian ideas ; and as degeneration 
proceeded the heads of the Church acquiesced more and more in 
a system of doctrine, practice, and organization, that was nomi- 
nal and ceremonial, and was losing life and reality. — Ramsey. 

Antioch and Emesa, centers of Syrian Christianity, were 
also centers of religions that made their influence felt through- 
out the Roman empire. The worship of the Syrian goddess 
of Antioch was a popular oriental superstition under the 
earlier Caesars ; and the rites of the sun-god of Emesa be- 
came fashionable under Heliogabalus. — Lightfoot, The Chris- 
tian Ministry. 

Heliogabalus, the corrupt priest of the Syrian sun-god 
at Emesa, was Roman emperor, 218-222. It was his inten- 
tion to merge Judaism, Samaritanism, Christianity, and the 
State religion into a single eclectic system in which sun- 
worship should predominate ; and to build a great temple in 
Rome in which side by side with sun-worship Jewish and 
Christian worship should be encouraged. — Newman. 

"The most important epoch in the history of the Lord's 
day is marked by the issue of the celebrated edict of Con- 
stantine (d. 337), . . . This edict was clearly intended to 
pay honor to the great Christian festival, although in ac- 
cordance with Constantine's general policy, it declined to 
identify the emperor with the religion which he desired 
only indirectly to support and only gradually to establish. 
The use of the heathen name of the 'solis dies' with the vague 
title 'venerabilis' — a title rendered more ambiguous by the 
known reverence which Constantine had delighted to pay 1o 
the sun-god — was probably something more than conven- 
tional." This interference of the temporal power invested 
the Lord's day with the strength and the weakness that the 
sanction of civil law must necessarily bring to religion. Later, 
ecclesiastical law united with the civil so that it was said 
that the Lord's day superseded the Sabbath not by obliga- 
tion of the divine law but by the ordinance of the Church 
and the custom of Christian people. And the tendency to 
sabbatize the First-day was due chiefly to the necessities of 



/6 HISTORICAL SURVEY 

the legal enforcement of the observance of the Lord's day, 
first by imperial laws then by the decrees of councils, generally 
supported by the secular power. — Dictionary of Christian 
Antiquities. 

Sabbath-keeping YValdenses, our ecclesiastical and his- 
torical ancestors, were for centuries a living protest against 
the spreading papacy. Sabbath-keeping Xestorians of ancient 
times ; and Sabbath-keeping Armenians of a more modern 
period, are witnesses to a continued regard for the Seventh- 
day through the Christian centuries. Concerning the Ar- 
menians Buchannan wrote in Researches in Asia a hundred 
years ago : "They are to be found in every principal city of 
Asia; they are the general merchants of the East. . . .Their 
general character is that of wealthy, industrious and enter- 
prising people. . . . They have preserved the Bible in its 
purity, and their doctrines are, as far as the author knows, 
the doctrines of the Bible. Besides, they maintain the solemn 
observance of Christian worship throughout our empire on 
the seventh day. . . . Are such people then entitled to no 
recognition on our part as fellow Christians ? Are they 
forever to be ranked by us with Jews, Mohammedans, and 
Hindoos ?'* — Lewis. 

In the mediaeval Church there was a steadily growing 
tendency to place other holy days on nearly the same level 
as the Lord's da}', and to guard all alike with quasi-sabba- 
tarian and burdensome regulations. This tendency was 
at the Reformation, by a two-fold Protest, (i) On the Continent 
generally, the tendency to reject all holy days and to treat 
The Lord's day as a matter of church ordinance subject to 
the Church's control. (2) In England, Scotland, and Hol- 
land, the placing of the Lord's day on a Scriptural 
as the '"Christian Sabbath,'' surrounded, often, with more 
than Judaic rigor. — Dictionary of Christian Antiquities. 

But there was a third protest — that of scholarly, eminent, 
English Sabbath-keeping Baptists. This vigorous protest 
was answered by Nicholas Bound who taught that the ob- 
servance of the "Christian Sabbath" was required by the 
fourth commandment. And Mr. Bound has been answered 
by history in the divorce of this unlawful union. 

These three protests or principles came to America and 
have grown to four: (1) No Sabbath and no Lord's day. 
(2) The Lord's day. (3) The "Christian Sabbath." (4) The 
Seventh-day doctrine. History and religious experience ask 



HISTORICAL SURVEY ^ 

for a Sabbath day; the Lord's day, whatever its claim for 
recognition by the Church, has no scriptural authority for 
calling itself a Sabbath, for as the great Italian theologian 
Perrone says, ''Protestants have no authority for the Lord's 
day or infant baptism outside the traditions of the Church;" 
the so-called Christian Sabbath has Christian, pagan, legalistic, 
and papal elements ; and Seventh-day Baptists need to watch, 
it seems to me, lest they offer to the Church and the 
world an unspiritual and unethical Sabbath, part Christianity 
and part that Judaizing legalism against which the apostle 
Paul protested so vigorously. Such sabbatizing on any day 
will lead to dead formalism or to desecration — two of today's 
spiritual dangers. But the Sabbath of Genesis, Isaiah, Jere- 
miah, Jesus and Paul, is universal, Biblical, Christian, free. 

There has been almost a revolution in the attitude of 
many persons toward? our people and the Sabbath doctrine. 
"It was a distinct loss that the Seventh-day, or the Jewish 
Sabbath, gradually fell into disuse ; for it represented the 
commemoration of the creation of all things by God, when 
God rested from his work which he had created and made 
— a. point of attachment to the natural order, in keeping 
with the Catholic purpose.'' — Allen's Christian Institutions. 
"I would rather keep Saturday;" "I am sorry the Church 
left the Sabbath and Baptism;' "Without doubt the Bible 
is on your side," — such utterances as these come from men 
who are leaders in the Church of today. 

This welcomed change has come, it may well be believed, 
because the chief supports of the so-called "Christian Sab- 
bath" are the unscriptural and unhistorical transfer of the 
Fourth Commandment to the First day; the traditions of 
men ; and civil legislation ; and because of the present rising 
power of the whole Bible over thought and life; and the 
increasing freedom and scope of modern Christian scholarship. 

In conclusion let me outline, briefly, three illustrative 
sets of stages in the history of the evolution of religion. 

I. Among the Greeks, i. Nature gods and nature re- 
ligion. 2. The Homeric gods with a religion of beauty 
but not of high moral standards. 3. The lofty teachings 
of Socrates and Plato. 4. A period of lower levels in re- 
ligion, morals, and philosophy. 5. The lifting power of 
Hebraism and the power of the Gospel among the Gentiles. 

II. In Hebrew History. 1. The emigration of Abraham, 
a Seventh-day-keeper. — Dods. 2. The legislation of Moses, 



78 HISTORICAL SURVEY 

and the struggle for supremacy among the Hebrews of 
polytheism, henotheism, and monotheism. 3. The grand 
ethical monotheism of Amos, Hosea, and Isaiah. 4. The 
sublime Jeremiah weeping because the blinded people cling 
to lower standards. 5. The priestly message and the work 
of Ezekiel and Ezra; and the doctrine of the so-called Second 
Isaiah that Jehovah God will be exalted among men in 
righteousness. 6. The conflict between Talmudic Judaism 
and the doctrinal and practical theology of Jesus and Paul. 

III. In the Christian Church. 1. The New Testament 
period, and the early spread of Christianity. 2. The falling 
of the Church to lower levels in faith and practice because 
of the blending of Christianity with pagan religion and 
philosophy. 3. The rise, dominion, and decline of the papal 
power. 4. The period of the Reformation. 5. The elevation 
of creeds to an unscriptural and unreasonable place of 
authority in the realm of spiritual things. 6. The answer 
of the spirit and work of modern missions and revivals to 
the attacks of deism and infidelity. 7. The present struggle 
of religion, the Bible, the Church, experience, reason, and 
fraternity, with agnostic science and philosophy, destructive 
criticism, practical atheism, anti-Christian religions and 
selfishness, for the rule over men's lives individually and 
collectively. 8. The call, at this acute crisis, for a return 
in the spirit and liberty of the Gospel to the faith of the 
New Testament and the religion and ethics of Jesus, that 
many who really believe in Christ and religion but not in 
the Church, may come to believe in his holy Church and to 
enjoy her sacred worship. 

We Seventh-day people may feel some pride which we 
should mingle with much humility and love, in calling the 
attention of our fellow Christians to the fact that it was 
this Christ who said, The Sabbath was made for man. 
And as certain of their own writers have said, Jesus con- 
ceived of the Sabbath as a day given to man by a beneficent 
Providence; his lordship over it was the right to humanize 
it against the Pharisees who had rabbinized it ; and what he 
spoke, he spoke for mankind to hear. 

And we believe that the return of the Church to the 
Sabbath of the Bible and of the Christ, to spiritual sab- 
bathism, would be a forward religious movement having a 
parallel only in the splendid forward movement of our day 
for the world's evangelization, for religious education, the 
federal union of Christians, peace, and social service. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Adeney, Biblical World, November, 1906. 

Alford, Greek Testament. 

Allen, The International Critical Commentary {Matthew). 

Allen, Christian Institutions. 

Bible, American Revision. 

Bible Commentary. 

Briggs, The Study of Holy Scripture. 

Broadus, The American Commentary on the New 
Testament {Matthew). 

Bruce, Apolegetics. 

Clay, Light on the Old Testament from Babel. 

Cornill, The Prophets of Israel. 

Cambridge Bible. 

Clarke, An Outline of Christian Theology. 

Conybeare and Howson, The Life and Epistles of Saint 
Paul. 

Driver, The Book of Genesis. 

Dillman, Genesis. 

Delitzsch, New Commentary on Genesis. 

De La Saussaye, Manual of the Science of Religion. 

Dods, The Book of Genesis. 

Encyclopaedia Biblica. 

Expositor's Bible. 

Farrar, Hebrews. 

Geikie, 

Gordon, The Early Traditions of Genesis. 

Godet, Commentary on the New Testament. 

Gould, St. Mark. 

Grenfell and Hunt, Sayings of Jesus. 

Hastings, Dictionary of the Bible. 

Hastings, Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels. 

Hebrew-English Lexicon. 

Houghton, Hebrew Life and Thought. 

Hackett, The Acts. 

Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria. 

Lewis, A Critical History of the Sabbath and the 
Sunday. 



80 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Leighton, Jesus Christ anad the Civilization of Today. 
Lange, Matthew. 
Lightfoot, Galatians. 
Mitchell, The World Before Abraham. 
Menzies, History of Religion. 
Marti, Religion of the Old Testament. 
Mc Fadyen, Messages of the Bible. 
Meyer, St. Matthew, St. John. 
Milligan, The Book of Revelation. 
Mc Clintock and Strong, Encyclopedia. 
Moule, Romans. 
McGiffert, The Apostolic Age. 
New Century Bible. 

Neander, Planting and Training of the Christian Church. 
Newman, A Manual of Church History. 
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Oehler, Old Testament Theology. 
Peters, Early Hebrew Story. 
Purves, The Apostolic Age. 

Price, The Monuments and the Old Testament. 
Plummer, St. Luke. 

Riddle, A Popular Commentary on the New Testament 
{Matthew). 

Ramsey, St. Paul the Traveler. 

Ryle, Nchcmiah. 

Ryle, Early Narratives of Genesis. 

Sanday, Romans. 

Schaff, Lange' s Matthew. 

Smith, Old Testament History. 

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Schultz, Old Testament Theology. 

Stevens, Theology of the Nezv Testament. 

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Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament. 

Wade, Old Testament History. 

Wernle, Beginnings of Christianity. 

Weymouth, Modem Speech New Testament. 



